2/6/24 Board Meeting

001She was holding me back there. I thought she was in the mirror. I was willing to come back. I was trying to stop her, but I couldn't stop her. I thought you're talking to yourself. Let me I didn't see Jose. Sorry. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Um we can do the roll call. Mr. Here I think here. Mrs. Heights here. Mr. Jones here. Miss Lima here. Right. Do I have a motion to approve this evening's agenda? So, make sure you guys look at also the work session items. Yes. Motion to approve the agenda. Okay. Second. All right. Mr. Chavez. Yes. Mrs. Evansson? Yes. Mrs. Heights? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Miss Lima? Yes. All righty. Um, we have an executive session for the purpose of determining positions relative to matters that may

002be subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations and/or instructing negotiators under CRS section 24-6-424E regarding negotiations with Mesa Valley Education Association. Um, present at this meeting will be myself, um, Director Will Jones, Director Angela Lima, Director Jose Luis Chavez, Director Barb Evansson, Superintendent Dr. Brian Hill, attorney Tammy Erit, and Chief um, Human Resource Officer Nikki Jo. Um, do I have a motion to move into executive session? So moved. Second. Okay, seeing no objections, take the vote. Mr. Chavis, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights, yes. Mr. Jones, yes. Miss Lima, yes. All right, we will move over into our side room. All right. Well, good evening everyone. We are going to go ahead and get started here. So, um, we will go ahead and call the meeting to order. And if you don't mind standing with

003us, we'll go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance. Director Evston, would you like to kick us off to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible and justice for all. All righty. Thank you. All right. February is Black History Month and so we of the as the board have a proclamation and director Jones is going to read that proclamation for us. Whereas during Black History Month, which is recognized in 1915, half a century after the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States, we commemorate commemorate the contrib contributions of black Americans to our nation. Black history is an integral part of American history and this month is a time to honor, celebrate, and reflect upon the significant impact black individuals have had in shaping

004the diversity and inclusivity inclusivity, excuse me, of our nation. And whereas we recognize the essence of our nation centers around the belief that all individuals are created equal and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. And whereas the contributions of black Americans from all walks of life in all fields reflect the greatness of United States. United States. Black Americans have and continue to participate in every American effort to secure, protect, and maintain the essence of American democracy. And whereas not only during February, but throughout the remainder of this year, we as a district must continue to build awareness and understanding of black American history and emphasize the importance of valuing differences within our school district. Now, whereas be it resolved that Mesa County Mesa County Valley School District Board of Education does hereby recognize

005February 2024 as Black History Month in reflection of our shared history. And as we remember where where we have been may also recognize that our that our only way to forward is together. We encourage our community to actively engage in the various schools and community activities that will take place throughout the month and celebrate the pro profound contributions black history has made for our society. [Applause] Thank you, Director Jones. Um, this week is the National Counseling Week recognition. So, we wanted to every February, school districts across the nations celebrate the National School Counseling Week taking place from February 5th through the 9th this year. The week is dedicated to recognizing the vital contributions of school counselors within the US educational system. It aims to shine a spotlight on their dedication to a challenging but incredibly

006rewarding profession. National School Counseling Week highlights our counselor's significant role in guiding students toward academic success and future career planning. The 2024 theme, school counseling, standardsbased, student focused, encapsulates their mission. Utilizing research resources and robust counseling programs, these professionals support students in becoming productive members of society. They actively guide students in exploring their talents and interests, steering them towards realizing their full potential in both school and life. School counselors focus on fostering positive development in students social, personal, educational, and career paths path, excuse me, collaborating with parents and educators to create an educational environment where all students feel prepared and supported to be and do their very best. Tonight, we want to take this opportunity to recognize and thank our D-51 school counselors for all they do to support our students, families, staff, and schools.

007We are grateful for your unwavering commitment and positive, excuse me, and positive impact you have in shaping the future of our students. Do we have any school counselors here tonight? Could you raise your hand? Nope. All right. Well, we'll go ahead and applaud for those who are in our back. So, all right. Thank you. All right. Next up, we are ready for our long range facility master plan update. So, Clint, you want to come up and get us prepared for that? Check. Check. All right. Good evening, board. Thank you for having us tonight. Uh for those in in the audience and those that might be watching online later, my name is Clint Garcia. I'm the chief operations officer here in District 51 and I am joined by Matt Eller and Matt Pora with Hort Copeland

008and Mock HCM and we will be sharing tonight um an update on the facilities long-range facilities master plan. Uh, as you remember, we started back in June of last year, late June, uh, kicking off the facilities master plan, and we are eight months into this. We are in the final phase of this master plan, and we just want to get you up to date of where we're at, uh, so far. And so, with that, I will turn it over to either Matt or Lynn. Start. All right. Am I do I advance here and myself? I can. Okay. Okay. Good. Um, hi everybody. Thanks for having us tonight. Um, it's been a while since we presented and gave the board an update. I recognize there's a couple new people uh on board and so I'll try

009to be brief, but I'll also try to uh be thorough and and bring everybody up to speed as best I can. Um, so uh just real quick agenda. Wanted to talk about our process overall and where we are uh in the timeline. Uh then we have some uh over an overview of assessment scores uh that uh has been a a bulk of the work that we've been doing so far in terms of uh assessing the buildings uh that you have. Um we're going to give an overview of our planning committee uh which has been assembling and meeting on a monthly basis to help give us guidance and input on the on the on the plan. and then uh a quick uh summary of some of the focus groups and interviews we've been doing uh at

010with various people across the district and some feedback from them. So I'll just kind of dive right in um and we'll answer questions um if you have any or wait we can wait till the end too. terms of our process um kind of presented as a a simple uh four-phase process. Uh started by um touring schools, doing uh sitewalks and facility assessments in step one and that began last summer. Um and then step two, we uh spent time recording uh those assessments um analyzing utilization capacity studies, compiling all the information that we were learning about your district, uh trying to get a handle on the conditions of the schools and things. Um and then we're we're getting into step three, uh which is looking at, you know, a couple or a few different options or

011approaches to how to tackle the conditions of the schools. um how to tackle what we're hearing from people in the schools about the needs and how to support the learning environments. Uh and then working with the committee to kind of say, you know, how would you um you know, how would you spend money to to tackle some of these needs? And then uh step four, uh which we have, you know, another couple of months to go, uh looking at kind of a final long range plan broken into phases that says we're going to do this now, we're going to do this next, and then we're going to do this in the future. And so that's we're kind of in step three, step four range. Um, and so, you know, that's u kind of our process

012in a nutshell. Um, so like I said, assessment scores have been really the bulk of what we've been doing so far. Um, and the way we have done it or approached it is each school or each facility even will get three different scores. The first being actual physical conditions of the building. Uh the second being our take on the educational adequacy and what that means is the are the classrooms big enough? Uh do they have a good special ed suite? Kind of the things that are not physical condition but support the functioning of the school. And then finally, we looked at utilization, which is the ratio of um how many students the school can accommodate versus how many are actually enrolled there. And so um you know, when we're talking about condition, this is a

013list of things that we typically look at. code compliance, exterior, interior finishes, roofing, um mechanical and plumbing systems, technology, all the kind of things that go into constructing a a school building. Uh and how um you know what those conditions are. Uh we'll also look at ADA accessibility, safety, security, um fire and life safety, and um over overall things like that. And then we'll also assign um things we see as as in a range of say we need to take care of this right away all the way down to you know it's it's a it's still got a 50-year lifespan or it's it's just a cosmetic enhancement. So there's a range of priorities for those um uh those needs. So, we've recently been able to compile um scores for each of the facilities that we

014looked at and it included I think about 40 to 43 of your facilities um from elementaryaries, middles, high schools to some miscellaneous and administrative facilities. Um and so when we had all that data back um we've kind of presented these as coded so that you you won't see the school's name in them uh alongside them for now as we just try to keep it um you know a little bit objective for the time being. Uh but you'll see that we've divided them up into tiers of A through F like a report card basically. And so, you know, the the top tier A, you'll find that, you know, a lot of your newer schools are in this level. Um, it's it's really heavily uh based on condition. So, um you your newer schools are 100%. Um

015and then in tier A, you're going to see schools that are above 70% in condition and adequacy for both those. And you have about 20 of your buildings in that in in A or B. And so as we move down, you can see the the colors start to change a little bit, but um getting into B, the conditions get a little lower and maybe the adequacy gets drops under 70%. Uh these are all on one to 100% scores. Um you know, and then you know, as we get lower in the B tier, some of the adequacy starts to drop. It may have been designed, you know, 40 40 50 years ago and it doesn't have the same size classrooms we would put in today. And so starts to take a little um dip there. And

016then as we get into Ctier, um you know, the condition drops below 70% score and along with adequacy typically. And so um we're in the 60s here. Um, and these are your middling middling schools that are probably in need of of a few a little bit of attention and have deferred maintenance. And then as we get into D, um, you know, the conditions really drop below 50% score um, in either the adequacy but mostly in the conditions. Lynn, can you explain just the um on the conditions themselves once we start to book drop below 50% what that what that really means for cost and Sure. Um so the way the condition is kind of formulated is the need the amount of money that it takes to repair a facility, bring it up to speed, bring

017it up to code, repair it all uh is a ratio of what it would cost to just replace the school um as it as it is as it exists today, but but brand new. Kind of like when you do your your home insurance and they have a replacement value. So the proportion of 50% um says that it would cost half to repair the school of of the cost of totally replacing it with like for like. So as we get higher um like 70% means uh it actually would take only 30% to bring it up to match a replacement. So it's a little bit inverted and true the other way. Correct. So if we go the other way, it's going to cost us a whole lot more to get that building back up to right. So

018as we get down into F tier, you'll see some scores that are 30% or even below. And that means it would cost almost as much to repair as it would to replace. And there are about seven facilities in that we've got in the F tier which are pretty low on the conditions or adequacy or both. So, like I said, we have like about 20 buildings in the A and B tier and 18 buildings in the C and D tier and then seven buildings in the F tier. And I think once we're in the DF tier, there's kind of a that's when we start to debate, you know, how much is it worth investing continuing to invest in this building versus planning for a replacement sometime soon. So, so that's kind of where we are with

019the assessments. Um, are there any questions? I'll pause. Okay, I'm gonna let Matt uh talk a little bit about the the planning committee and what we've been working on. So, we've had monthly meetings with the planning committee and we've structured those to take advantage of uh getting chances to see all of some different schools. So, we've had meeting each meeting has been at a different location. Our first two are at elementary schools and our second two are at middle and our meeting next week is out at Fruit of Monument High School. And so our sixth meeting will be at another high school as well. And we've had the opportunity to take a tour of those spaces. Again, we've had uh I think the next slide kind of goes through which one, but we um started

020with Monument Ridge as the as one of the newest elementaryaries uh and able to kind of look at some of the uh designs uh and features of that school and and then the second meeting was at uh P Park and and had the opportunity to the principal from Pair Park's honor committee was able to lead that tour and again a newer school but but also designed in a different era and again just to see some some compare contrast and a lot that one really kind of comes into maybe some of the educational adequacy in terms of the different types of spaces that are needed on and wanted and used in schools today than things that we were thinking about 2030 years ago. Uh and likewise um our third meeting was at Orchard Mesa. So our

021newer middle school and then we had our meeting uh our last meeting was at West and so again a lot of a lot of differences between West and Orchard Mesa in terms of the type of space and and the quality of the space. Maybe just a little bit a little bit a little bit. So we've established some guiding principles uh and that kind of came out of our first couple meetings with the committee in terms of what would be some of the goals for on this process and things we need to be remembering and even kind of the headsp space we should all be in as we're discussing the the future for the district. And so um so we've we've been going with 51 and 50 as our overall moniker. And uh so it's a

022great name. And [Laughter] so and so and again I'll just hit the the big the the bold points but ultimately uh you know looking for clarity on a lot of the goals really need to be focusing on the the safety of our our schools and our students. uh we need to be thinking about flexibility uh and that uh over time whatever we do today needs to set the district up to be flexible. Recognition of uh being durable and efficient which really ties into on physical conditions that uh there's there's a recognition until significant changes happen at a state level operation budgets will always be tight for school districts and so being being able to make some long-term decisions today to help districts manage their money operationally in the future is important. um accessibility and really

023u tied into promoting uh in recognition of the community involvement and uh you know and getting people into schools and getting kids you know to schools and then uh talked about renewable and so in the in that sense it was really in the context of we're putting together a plan that is realistic on fiscally responsible on recognizes the on the the community it's in on voter sentiment you know so if we have a great plan that no one will vote for. It's not a great plan. So, we need to re that's a part of the reality. We need to come up with an approach that u can allow the district to be successful in the future when when the time comes to ask the voters for some bond funding to do some work that it

024it that it is realistic. So uh so some of the uh kind of summaries of of we've had series of meetings and but a lot of a lot of conversation early on the importance of safety and security and we've had uh both at a committee level and even at a focus group level with with folks in the district and have really highlighted kind of a series of of things they like to see in each of the schools. a lot of your new schools all have these things. And so it's really kind of maybe bringing some safety equity up and that should be a priority that we should be looking at on in terms of this plan. Uh deferred maintenance and just recognizing that uh you know if we're going to keep if we're going to

025have kids in these buildings and we're going to use these buildings, we need to make sure that they're they're functioning and functional and operationally as efficient as we can make them. uh and that learning environments, you know, ultimately everything we're doing is about creating spaces for our kids and our educators to succeed and need to look at opportunities to to improve learning environments. And there's a a variety of topics. Um furniture has come up quite a bit. And again, why did the the newer schools have some newer furniture that makes it even like in this room very easy to reconfigure and that creates a lot of uh flexibility for teachers, but just creating spaces that are comfortable for kids. So addressing, you know, uh if we got schools that are it's more often too hot

026than too cold, you know, trying to get those spaces corrected, uh and uh you know, equity with related to technology and even recognizing that having a variety of spaces in a school provides more opportunities for uh uh different different ways of learning and different ways on specialists come in and support students. And so one of our earlier exercises on uh kind of we broke up into groups and uh and again it was just really to kind of see where people were thinking in terms of of how would you spend money. So we looked at on kind of three if we had three phases and we we put it on an election cycle but the years could be fairly arbitrary and how on you know there's the different categories to spend money safety and security learning

027environments or new construction and then there's the different educational types and just ask each group if you're looking forward where you think the district should be investing money and so at at what school and at what kind of scope and so so that each of the groups uh and it was a great discussion. Each of the groups came up with uh and had to present their their plans and their thoughts, you know, back on to the whole. But there's some level of of consistency with kind of the big picture pieces that there is some some recognition that u safety and security should be phase one, you know, priority for the district. Uh need to address some of the the maintenance issues, but also kind of recognize that if you just had a maintenanceonly bond, that's

028a tough that's a tough cell. And so it needs to be paired with some of the other amenities that are important that that for the students on learning environments on you know kind of fell maybe to to phase two or if there's easy ways to pair up some of that in phase one. Um, and some of the thoughts there could be related to furniture packages that, you know, some of these older schools with new furniture could have some new life and that with uh kind of the rounds of recent new construction that really on the whole new construction probably needs to be a little further out on on within the within the plan and that there in terms of of where to invest the money. So in in January, we uh started to we had

029some of our some of the data we just put up on the assessments and kind of task the group with uh look, you know, looking at schools or tiers of schools now that we have some of this assessment data. Would that would you change a little bit of how you would approach or where you would spend uh the money? And you some questions at what point would you not invest any more money? uh and and what would your strategies be? So, this is primarily focused on a conversation related to the facility assessment scope in terms of what what schools would you invest some money to to fix up and you know on the whole there is uh a lot of conversations that uh there's already been realignment at the middle school level and I'll say

030some stability in terms of the number of middle schools in the district and and we should invest in those middle schools because they're here and we're going to have kids in these buildings for a while. So, that should be something we should look at investing some recognition of uh with the new Grand Junction High School. Central is now an older high school and it has some some needs and so do we need to look at some investment there. Uh on the whole, you know, you know, if you don't if you don't take care of your B, C, and D schools, they'll become C, D, and F schools. And so, you know, we what we can do there. Again, anything related to life safety was a was a high priority. U there's some talk about looking

031at uh there's quite a few schools at high high utilization rates with a low facility score. So, so if we're going to keep kids in these buildings, those would be buildings we should invest in and we have a lot of kids in those schools. And then in general areas that would be have some reluctance to spend some money on really need to take a look at the schools in that F category in terms of where they are. I mean ultimately on you know are when and how there's a lot of factors but those that those are targets on and then some comments related to on you know there's some schools uh that have maybe a high utilization score but a low student capacity and so on and there's been other discussions with other committees about

032there's you know there is a sweet spot in elementary schools in terms of number of kids in the school operationally. So a full school at a small, you know, is that long-term our model or do we need to be looking at a different model in terms of number of kids in a building? And so and that yeah brought us up to last month and we we're we're back in town next Thursday for our our next meeting and and uh we'll get we'll be presenting a little more uh related to some thoughts on how to package as we've talked about all these priorities some of our thoughts on how to organize you know what could fit in maybe your your next bond you know what should be that first in the first package and start to

033get some feedback on that. Um, we've also been compiling our data and so we have uh maybe I'll just call it a dashboard we want to present to just get some feedback on how you know is it understandable if this was out in the public would would people know what they're looking at so we get some feedback on that before we push it out. So that's that'll be next week. Thanks Matt. Um, so just uh also I'm just going to give a quick summary of uh some of the other discussions we've had just to bring everybody up to speed and um uh just to you know let everybody know we did uh take the time to interview each of the principles uh maybe 90% of them that we were able to get meetings scheduled with

034and uh asked them these four questions about what would you change or keep or add to your school and that kind of helped us fill out that educational adequacy uh um kind of things and even helped us miss uh pick up on some things we might have missed while we were walking the site. So those were very helpful focus groups that have taken place, safety security, uh Dr. Hill's teacher advisory group. I've also met with ECE leadership, academic leadership, sped leadership in the district and you know the couple are remaining that we need to get scheduled for this month for input. Um up here you'll see um the the safety security focus groups uh priorities. Absolutely. We want to establish these across all schools. Um access control, communications, uh cameras, um and uh definitely securing

035the site from a fencing and and traffic ballards standoint some of the things that came up repeatedly. Um and if we look at academics and ECE um you know education moving more towards flexible groupings of students versus rows of desks with a teacher up front. And so how do we accommodate that in some of our older schools where um you know that might be a solution or furniture versus in a newer school it would be a you know a white spot in the hallway to to take kids out to. So um a lot of good discussion there. Um let's see preschool talked about a little bit um in terms of the future of preschool in the district recognizing that universal prek is here. It's going to grow and so how do we accommodate that in

036the future of the district? Do we want um classrooms at every or preschool classes at every elementary uh from that standpoint and what do we need to do to plan for that versus like ECE centers in every community where it's more of a central hub. And a lot of the comments were leaning more towards we feel like it's better for the families to have preschool at every elementary long term. You know, think in 20 25 years. So, and then special ed heard a lot of needs about enrollment in the district is down, but special ed needs and special ed enrollment is up. And so, a lot of the older spaces don't quite accommodate the equipment that's needed. Um, and so how can we work on to improve that? Um and then um you know just

037the the long-term strategy of of providing those breakout spaces and intervention spaces and and things that are needed in a modern school uh as we move forward as a district. So good discussions all of those and that's uh basically hopefully has brought you up to speed on where we are as a as a team and the process. Any questions? Does anybody have any questions? I'm curious about one on safety and security. It says added slashupgraded cameras and explore AI software. What AI software is there out there for safety and security? Sorry, just I know I'm curious. So there it's largely centered around you can add too Matt but largely centered around the the cameras and what they'll pick up on video and the the ability for the computer to detect like a threat perhaps um

038without a human having to to see. They never get tired watching the camera. So I and again I think it's um for us personally isn't software we're aware of but certainly your security teams are aware of or know that is coming or could be available and so looking at how the fact that maybe you know there were conversations you know on some ends like we had an SRO in every building that'd be a different scenario I mean that but u so that AI was related to if whatever the police put a bolo out keep an eye out for somebody the camera could say hey you this person just approached the school, you should go into lock. I mean, so that's kind of the technology that probably exists today and I don't know what the specific

039softwares are, but and it's ever changing, right? I was just curious. I hadn't heard it. So, I don't know the specifics there, but it is kind of tied into that camera into the camera software. Yeah, I have some stuff I can tell you about later. Sure. Barb freak me out. It's good stuff. Any other questions? Um, I know everybody's probably wanting to know which schools are which. Um, and I know the board kind of requested to keep this um, information a little bit just uh, like just so I don't know how how to best explain it. What um, we just wanted to be kind of we just wanted to look at it yeah very very subjectively so that we're not um, there's no emotion involved in this. It's just straight ahead what the committee came

040up with as the criteria that they were looking at and and this blends into that. So, um just keeping that the names of the schools hidden for now for lack of a better term. Just it just it's there. They know what it is. But when we start to assess and and we meaning the district look at those and start to assess them, they're really coming at it from clear clear eyes and not not conflating it with any emotion and that sort of thing. Yeah, we were we were clear with the committee that um this committee is not the closure committee. And so we wanted to also create a level of separation between the work of this committee and then the work of um of other committees. And so um it it enables them to just

041look at straight data and scores and say how would we want to prioritize taking care of these buildings? Um, but like you said, at some point, I mean, we will have to release names as we talk about um plans for future bonds and and things of that nature, and we are going to utilize some of this data um for those other purposes, but we wanted to make sure this committee wasn't feeling like they were the the closure committee. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Oh, thank you, gentlemen. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Yeah. Presentation. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have our strategic plan update for our community and communications. So, Tracy and his team can come on up. Good evening, board. How you doing? Good. Good. Um, for those in the community

042who don't know me, my name is Tracy Gyos and I'm the director of access, opportunity, and family partnerships. And tonight, Cali, our PIO, and I are going to do our strategic um, implementation update for you all. Um and um before we get going, I wanted to just uh highlight that uh the value of the grad profile. Over the course of this school year, we've made intentional efforts to collaborate with our colleagues and community partners to ensure that our initiatives align with the D-51 graduate profile. As you may recall, the development of our profile and the overall strategic plan involved extensive consultation and collaboration with various stakeholders in our community. Together with students, staff, parents, and valued community partners, we embarked on a journey to create a guiding document that serves as a roadmap for our

043district's educational programming. This collaborative effort was instrumental in shaping our approach to the work we're going to be highlighting tonight and that ultimately will lead to ensuring that all of our students are engaged, equipped, and empowered to be creative problem solvers that are culturally connected and ready to thrive once they leave our district. Tonight's update, we're going to be centered around the work that we've been doing in our engaged and community partners focus area of the strategic plan. Specifically, we're going to highlight the progress we've made toward improving how we communicate and build stronger relationships with all of our D-51 families. We also aim to demonstrate that we have a clear vision for how we will continue to grow our capacity to partner with our families to ensure that all our students are able to

044thrive in our everchanging world. Before we begin with the update, uh, I'd like to take a moment to recognize and show gratitude for the incredible support that we've received from the amazing members of our action team and our community task force members. Since August, we've met monthly with our action team and assigned important tasks to complete to ensure we're laser focused on accomplishing our goals for implementing the plan this year. Thank you so much to Cali, Sierra, Strea, Lisa, and Claudia for all the extra hours that you've put into the work this year. We've also met on a quarterly basis with our community task force to share progress and gain valuable feedback and insight from this diverse group of individuals that includes principles at all three levels, expertise from front office professional. They interact with

045our families on a daily basis and the leaders of some of our most valued partners including La Plaza and Palisade, the United Way of Mesa County and the Riverside Education Center. Thank you to Dr. Dr. Danny Medbed, Jamie Chairo, N Clusmire, and Miranda Martinez for sharing your perspective from the schools. Also to Nelly Garcia, Zebulun Miracle, and Jack Curry for your advice based on your experiences leading your organizations and working with our community families. The purpose that we defined for our team this year was language taken straight for the strategic plan. We're focused on developing communication and leadership structures that will improve clarity to our students and families about how to take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities we have available in D51. Our goal this year is to develop and test a portfolio of

046communication tools that meet the diverse needs of our community. And tonight, we're excited to share what we've been able to accomplish so far and where we're headed for the rest of the 2023 2024 school year. I'm going to hand it over to Cali to start us off by sharing some compelling data. Yeah. Perfect. All right. So, tonight we're going to start with some incredibly fresh data that we uh collected from our 2024 annual communication survey. So, if you all remember, one of the initiatives within our priority area is to release an annual communication survey that will engage our staff, families, and community in the district's communication processes. So, this is actually the first year of this survey, and we want this to serve as a baseline of information for where we currently are and where

047we need to go in order to get to that three-year goal. And that three-year goal is to have 75% of our families feel that they always or almost always receive adequate and timely information from the district. So, we released the survey on January 19th. It was open for two weeks, and we closed it late last week. We had 1,569 total responses and then you'll see the breakdown of those responses up on the screen. Um we're still really digging into the meat of this survey, but there are a few key data points that we do want to um point out tonight. So the first one is that we are well on our way to having to meeting that goal of at least having 75% of our families feel that they always or almost always have access

048to adequate and timely information from the district. So, we're sitting at right over 70%, 70.1 to be exact. But in that occasional category, so that um orange category where you see 23.1, we actually consider those respondents somewhat neutral. So, when you look at this graph, what you're really going to see is that we only have about 6.8% of people saying that they rarely or never receive communication from the district. So, we're pretty confident that we can move that needle and have less and less of those people in that occasionally category and move them up to the almost always or always categories. We still obviously have some work left to do to reach our goal, but as we diagregate the information, we will dive into the areas in which respondents shared that we are lacking in

049effective communication and we will work to develop some processes that will support those areas. And so we also want to point out something that we're really excited about which is very evident in the responses that we received from this survey. So if you look at the left side of the screen, um there's a large desire from our community to have the website be easier to navigate. Um the majority of respondents relayed that they can only sometimes find what they need or are looking for. So um as we all chuckle at this because we all know that this is something that is desperately needed and something that also came out of our communications audit. So um we know through this these uh responses that we're moving in the right direction. And then on the right you

050will also see that the community is very interested in having an app option for our district. Um which is something we'll dive into a little bit into in a little bit but that's also something we're really excited about. And then the last piece of data from the survey we want to share is something that we will be working towards improving. So if you look at the screenshot on the left um you will see that most of the respondents rely on email and the superintendent weekly update for news regarding D51 and the website isn't really a high contender. So the website's that red box um to the left of the or I guess be the right of the blue. Um, but when asked how important the following forms of communication were, so our messaging apps, social

051media, website, superintendent update, and local news, the majority of respondents reported that the website is the most important source of communication, but that's not necessarily where they are going to actually receive that communication or that information. Um, so we we all know that the website's hard to navigate. It's just too busy. And as we dive deeper into this data, um, we will be working on this. But right off the bat, what this tells you is that the website is our number one priority. And then the community also wants to continue receiving um, information and communication from Dr. Hill. So that superintendent update was that second most important source of communication. Um, and Dr. Hill consistently shares good news, updates, and information across the district and to our community. So, we will work on enhancing all

052of the ways in which we communicate through that. That update goes out through email. So, shouldn't it get some shouldn't I get some of the points from the email or the pie? Sorry. Go ahead. I don't know how to respond to that. That's a good point, Dr. It's a good response. I'm excited to and we're going to share several tools that we've been working on this year. And the first few we're going to talk about is really highlighting how we are really trying to be intentional about reaching every student. So over the summer, uh, we assembled an amazing task force to co-create a detailed action plan to guide our efforts in improving our family partnership infrastructure in D-51. Our task force was composed of 27 dedicated individuals committed to supporting the success of youth. The

053members were a diverse group of stakeholders including senior leadership, central administration, school leadership, and support staff in D51, as well as esteemed community professionals with expertise in youth mental health, family resource navigation, and cultural supports for individuals from diverse ethnic and language backgrounds. Additionally, we were fortunate to have active participation from a diverse group of parents from across the valley. Together, we designed the D-51 family and community partnership roadmap, which encapsulates encapsulates three strategic objectives along with corresponding strategies and metrics. This comprehensive plan serves as our guiding framework for fostering stronger partnerships between our schools, families, and communities. The task force convened on five occasions over the span of five months during which we engaged in robust discussions and collaborative problem solving sessions. Following each meeting, members were tasked with gathering input from their respective

054communities, including friends, families, co-workers, and neighbors. This inclusive approach ensured that we captured a broad spectrum of perspectives and considered multiple opinions and viewpoints throughout the road map's development process. [Music] The next tool I want to share um is actually the first objective of the road map and it's directly uh it directly addresses the feedback received from our communication survey emphasizing the need to simplify our messaging to our families. To effectively address this objective, our task force developed a comprehensive strategy centered around the creation of a communication rubric. The purpose of this rubric, aptly named PACT as an acronym symbolizing our commitment to intentional communication, is to streamline both internal and external communication efforts. The PACET rubric serves as a guiding framework to ensure that our communication is focused on conveying essential information in a

055manner that best serves our community's needs. It emphasizes clarity, relevance, and timeliness, aligning with the feedback we receive from our stakeholders. The rubric will be piloted this spring being tested by select departments and schools within the district. This pilot phase will allow us to gather feedback and refine the rubric before its full imp implementation beginning in the 2425 school year. We are confident that this communication tool will yield positive outcomes and contribute to our aim of improving communication and connection with families. I brought a prop for this. Uh, an additional tool that I'm excited to share with you tonight is our new instant language assistant device. We call it the ISA. Oops. There. Um, we've now delivered, trained, and implemented the instant language assistant translation device in 37 buildings across the district, including our three

056administration buildings. and the schools with the highest numbers of multilingual families. These helpful communication tools are programmed to provide language support in 110 of the most common languages spoken around the world with many of them available in speechto text and texttospech formats. The ISA is essentially two tablets that are programmed to work in coordination to provide instant interpretation support and are valuable tools to make sure that a family member that is not able to communicate in English has the opportunity to share important information with school offices or ask important questions and seek clarification from schools. We've also encouraged our schools to highlight this tool with their families and make sure that their families know that they are welcome and encouraged to have meaningful communication with their children's schools in their native language. They're pretty cool.

057All you really They're very easy to use. All you really have to do is just select the language that you um that comes with a guest side and a host side. So, the guest would show up, select the language, they pick Spanish, they have a wide variety of countries that they can choose. They can select their dialect and then they will be prompted to communicate. And um you can actually turn the voice on and listen or you could turn it off and just read. But it's really a a neat tool and um we are we are seeing positive results so far. All right, I think I'm going to pass it back to Cali. Okay, so on one side of the house, we're working to ensure that each family in our district feels like they have

058an individualized connection with D51. And then on the other side, we're working to ensure that all families have access to adequate and timely information. So, how do we do that? We are going to implement some universal communication strategies that address the diverse needs of all district 51 families by providing proactive information in an easily accessible way. One of the first ways we are going to do this is through our new comprehensive family resource guide, which is aimed at creating a smooth transition for new families to our district and providing valuable information for our current families. This guide will serve as a navigational tool offering essential information for not only how to get involved, but also when, where, and how to access important tools and resources. It will be particularly useful for new families to our

059district because it will offer the guidance on how they can become active participants in their children's education. And for our existing families, the guide will serve as a convenient reference for important dates, information, and resources available throughout the year. So, I put a couple of screenshots up there. The guide will be available in English and in Spanish. It will be available in all of our D51 offices and our schools. and then it will also have a digital version on our website. Um, really what this is going to do is it's going to ensure that new families to the district have the information that they're looking for kind of all in one spot. Um, and then our current families also have information like school calendar, bell schedules, um, flowcharts of who to contact in the district

060for when they need them throughout the year. And then another strategy for achieving this goal is one that we are really excited about. It's our website. So while we are excited to roll out our family resource guide this summer, we are also making big strides in improving and streamlining our digital platforms. In early fall, we formed a website steering committee to strategize the transformation of our website to be a one-stop shop for all D-51 communication needs. Initially, the committee was comprised of D-51 staff who helped us evaluate various website vendors, ultimately choosing one based on some key criteria, including a user-friendly interface for our staff, a streamlined navigation, various translation capabilities, and the addition of a mobile app. The committee then transitioned to a broader group consisting of community partners, teachers, school administrators, parents, and

061D-51 central office staff who collaborated with the chosen vendor to design our new district and school sites. Having the committee actively participate in this process ensured our stakeholders needs aligned with our strategic plan goals as we move forward. Additionally, we are excited to introduce a mobile app that will allow families to integrate information from multiple schools into one account. So, if you have a child at an elementary school and you have a child at a middle school, you'll select those two schools and then on your front page interface, those two schools and that information from each of the schools will be um it will be a collaborative interface so that you can see information from both schools. So this is going to cater to our families who are on the go go go and who

062expressed a strong interest in this option again based on the feedback from our communication survey. So we're excited to share but that by the end of the school year the efforts of this committee will culminate in a brand new fresh website and a new mobile app that will be userfriendly, efficient and responsive to the diverse needs of our staff, families and community. [Laughter] Fair, fair. Yeah. So, um, those were the tools we chose to highlight tonight. Um, it's your opportunity now to ask any questions or give us any feedback. I looked at that. I'm sorry. I I looked at that at was it Pear Park? Mesa View. I thought it was amazing. I know you have to talk. You have to be careful. You got to speak slowly. uh talk too fast it misses. But

063I really like that you could go to the dialects from if you speak Spanish you can go from Mexico to Argentina to Elsavad and all those other like all those dialects so the family can really hear what's going on. I think it's really excellent that it um it makes families that they're appreciated and they're welcome into the school. So I I really like that a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Jose. Yeah. What's cool is that um and we're seeing uh more diverse um Spanish speaking families at District 51, especially recently. But what's cool is it's a smart um it's has smart technology and and so um you know it adapts the more you use it to the languages you use and it gets pretty it's pretty good about um picking up on dialect and and

064becoming more accurate over time. It's a pretty neat device. So, did you um did we do a special like communication to families letting them know that we now have these in our schools and so if they've been hesitant to come and communicate with the school because they felt there was some frustration there. I'm just wondering how did you let the families know that we now have this opportunity for them? Yeah. So when we implement them, so we the first thing we did was um go to the buildings and teach the office staff how to use the build um the device, but then um we encouraged the office staff to let families know that hey, we have this device. It's available. Um we we want you to come in. We really want that message to be,

065hey, uh you know, I heard from several um people that parents were getting the message, hey uh sorry, but we can't help you because we don't speak your language here in the office. And so we said we want to make sure that that's never a message that parents hear again. And so um we encourage schools to make sure and and let families know that they have this device available. We're also doing we do a monthly um meeting here at the boardroom um um in Spanish. We call it no formativa. And we've trained all the parents who attend regularly and we get anywhere from 30 to 50 parents to show up to these meetings. We've trained them on how to use it and to be expecting um to use the device um whenever they go to

066their school. And I I know we've put it in the Friday update, too, which 17% of people get their news from. Um and it uh and that goes out in uh Spanish as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't go out in other languages, but it does go out in English and Spanish. So, we we did push that out earlier in the fall, I think. Is that something that'll be a resource that might be able to um be implemented during parent teacher conferences as well or will we have that extensive availability at some point or is it just going to be like one device per school at this point or at this point with um we have it designed to kind of stay in the office and really be available when parents show up. It's it's meant to

067be a parent communication tool. Um, but we also, you know, we don't want a student with zero English to be at school and have something come up and not be able to communicate uh with, you know, the people that need to communicate. So, we've instructed our schools that they could definitely use it for language needs. When it comes to parent teacher conferences, um, you know, I can see where that might um, it might make sense, but I think it really depends on the content of the conference. You know what we've instructed schools and what we tell when we train our our staff about requesting interpretation services. We tell them to be really mindful and to put on their parent hat. And if you're as a parent, if you want to hear, you know, from a

068a machine or if you want to hear from a human and if you have a concern or if you're going to be sharing information about a learning need or a or you know, a behavior thing or whatever, we ask that you use our interpretation services and get a person who can come and do some um in-person translation and make sure because one of the things that these have are there's always a little bit of technology embedded into to it. And so there's always possibilities for like miscommunication and and misunderstandings. And we wouldn't want that if a parent's upset um or stressed out about something they heard or something their child told them. They're um they're also not cheap. And so we've um you know, Tracy and the team have utilized um getting grant funds to

069be able to um provide the ones that they have now. So yeah, it'd be great to be able to expand them um at some point, but um it's they're definitely an investment for each one. So, we're excited to at least have them uh in the buildings and they can be utilized if they need them. So, great. Any other questions? Well, thank you both for the presentation. That was really great information this evening. We're super excited. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Next, we have our Grand Junction High School construction update. And right with that will be the Grand Junction High School academics academy. Excuse me. I need my glasses. He's not academics. All right. Hello everyone. Um, once again, I think I've met most of you, but my name is Micah Adams. I work for

070Dynamic Program Management, uh, the owners rep for the high school uh, construction project. Here with me, I've got Eddie Mort with the school district, um, and Peter Eisenogle with the BLE group. So, we'll go ahead and jump into things. As usual, we've got just an overview of this schedule and budget. Um, things are going according to schedule. Um, and things are going according to to budget. So, uh, so far we've got about 141 committed to date through December. um with about 95 million of that being expended um with local expenditures being about twothirds of that um which once again we hit on this every month or every time we give a presentation but that's just fantastic to see that uh percentage on a project this size. Um so you see there on the completion of

071scheduled days uh you see that the star there that we are rapidly approaching. Um that's the um start of school here this coming fall. Um and like I said earlier everything is going according to plan to uh get students in on time. So, couple recently completed items you'll see there are uh kicked off moving coordination meetings. uh had a all staff meeting with the Grand Junction High School teachers um here last week to start running through what move out is going to look like and they've really commenced phase one which is uh a purging of materials no longer needed and starting to pack up um you know textbooks and everything that maybe aren't in use right now. So it's a it's a heavy lift. Um so we we wanted to start as soon as possible

072on that. As you'll see there as well um the change order was recently accepted to resurface the track. Um so that that was an exciting step for everybody. Um next there's well there's a lot in progress but a couple things to highlight. as you've seen, um, parking lots out on the west side of the site. FCI has started work on that, trying to get as much done as they can here before schools get school gets out because as soon as it does, it's going to be go go um to get uh the building torn down and turned into a parking lot before school starts in uh in the fall. Uh, one other thing to mention there is I believe here tomorrow there's a bunch of rooftop units showing up to get set. Um, and they'll

073be working on getting those uh started and going um and on so that they can start putting in the the wood flooring in the gyms. upcoming uh here next week actually we've got our first architectural punch walk um starting first floor of the classroom wing we'll be walking through with big group and uh really starting to pin down okay what what work is remaining um what are you know little fixes that need to happen here or there um and putting just a pen to paper creating a list of what else is is out there so that's a that's a big step in the process a good milestone to hit. Um so we're excited to be starting that now that like I said um that's just kicking off the process. We'll be doing that um here

074all the way for the next couple months. Um but it's good to start. Kitchen equipment is showing up here soon. Um operable partitions like I said, wood floor and the gyms. Um, and then we've got furniture showing up in May as well as shop equipment and all that specialty equipment. So, got a couple pictures for you guys um of exciting things happening in the building from lockers in the corridors to case work, uh brick veneer in the auditorium, teacher workrooms, uh fume hoods, and some exciting construction metrics over on the left side if you're interested in those. Next, uh we've got a video for you. I do apologize. Uh music music isn't um I know I I ran into some issues. Had to go with what's free. [Music] No. Start a dance party. Yeah. Going

075to start a dance party. [Music] down. There we go. Hey, hey, hey. [Music] All right. Well done. Apparently I uh need to learn how to fade the music out. So um yeah. So that's a overview of the project. What we have here is just uh a kind of intro into Jory and his team. They'll be getting up here to talk to you about the academy model that was um really integral in the design of this building. Um and so with that, I guess I'll look for questions before we turn it over to Jory. Anybody have any questions? Great. Anything for you guys? Nope. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Yes. We always look forward to the music choice. All right. Good evening. Good to see you guys. Thank you for your service. Um, I

076know we've all met, but I we have all met, but I'll introduce myself. I'm privileged to be the principal of Grand Junction High School. And boy, it's it's awesome to follow uh Micah and the gang there. Um, and um, yeah, every day that every day that we are in our current school and looking to that new one, um, we're inspired and energized just to continue to move our our vision and our mission forward. So, that's what we're here to talk to you about. Um, with me, I have uh one of our amazing assistant principles, Jared Bureick, and he really leads this academy committee team. And then, um, also, um, our one of our highly skilled math teachers and admin intern Megan Foster. So, they're going to help me with this presentation. I want to talk

077to you first about um Grand Junction High School is um by necessity um a comprehensive high school. And comprehensive high schools in America are excellent because they offer a plethora of choices to students. Students can come into that school and there's a lot of different avenues they can take. The challenge that the leaders in the community of that school have is to create meaning in that school so that kids don't come in and fall through cracks, get lost and really lose inspiration. So, our goal our goal is to have a comprehensive high school with all of these different options and we offer so much to our students while at the same time providing them a personalized experience that will inspire them, intrinsically motivate them to continue to look forward to be our D51 graduates. So,

078that's really what this academy model is about. Um, it's about providing those pathways where every one of our students can see them their him or herself fitting in and saying, "Here's where I want to go with my life." Um, and we tell them, "We just want you to be the best at whatever you're going to be, and we want to provide that pathway to help make that happen. So, a little bit about the academy model, some of the nuts and bolts. So, first of all, um all of our students are in our academy model, and this is this is the first year um that we've really unveiled it on the student level. Um students are organized um into into different groups and right now they're in academy class together. We'll talk about that in a

079bit. Um they're in classes, they have activities there and we have activities around different career clusters within each of ouries. There's different pathways and you can see more about that in the CA Academy program we share we've shared with you. Um and we currently have fourmmies and within each of those there's four or five different pathways for students um to follow. There's so much great about um our academy model and the vision that it's providing. Um, one thing I will say is it really aligns well with our district strateg strategic plan. Um, it also really aligns well with um with our PDSA process and all the things that we do within our district PL and our school PL around goal setting. So these are our three big goals in our school this year. Um, one

080about around academic rigor, we call that our aim one. Um, community community culture is our our second aim. And then third is right around that career clear connectedness which um which as I talked about a moment ago really fits well with the graduate profile um as well as you know our academy model. So so we want to create that more intentional high school experience for our students. It's really what it all all comes down to. So to talk a little more about that I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Bureick. Thanks. Thanks Jory. And uh thank you all again for having us here this evening. Uh so I'm going to dive in a little deeper with you into themies at Grand Junction High School and try to give you all a picture of uh

081what that what that means for students experience at Grand Junction High School. As Jory said, you know, with that goal of uh of this model creating a more individualized experience for students uh through their high school years. So as Jory mentioned, there's fourmies. You can see those up there. arts and humanities, environmental science, technology and engineering, business communications and entrepreneurship, and health sciences and human services. Uh within uh within each of thosemies, there's four to five pathways. Uh those are the flags pictured up there. And like Jory said, as you're as you have a chance to uh uh break into that program guide that we gave you all, you can actually see that uh each of those has a section and each pathway has a page. And on that uh pathway sheet uh a pathway

082is defined by coursework mostly electives uh that students can take pertaining to that pathway as well as uh pathway experiences which are things like like clubs uh you know it can be job shadowing internships uh are are great options around the district like career center and and CMU. So, uh, uh, those pathways is really what, uh, defines that and and gives the students that that choice as to what they want to want to pursue at Junction High School. So, I'm going to take a couple minutes here to kind of talk about uh, where this work began and where it's headed. Uh, so the the blank spots up there for the current school year and into the future, I'll fill those in in the next couple slides. And even though the uh timeline up here starts

083at uh 2021 2022, the idea for this academy model high school at Grand Junction High actually started back in uh 2018-19. Uh the idea kind of came to life when a group of teachers uh actually many district personnel we toured uh high schools over on the eastern slope and there's a few there's a few academy academy model high schools over there and we were very inspired. uh we even got the work off the ground in the following school year 2019 uh 2020 but we all know what happened in 2020. So that uh co you know that really paused the work uh for a couple years. Uh and then pick it up on the timeline here and in 2021 uh as we just saw the uh the new building right the new building passed that fall

084that was uh that inspired a group of teachers actually to begin meeting in uh the spring of 2022. Uh you know the new building was is designed off of that academy model. So the teachers wanted to bring the idea back to life. So that was really cool to see that our teachers took it upon themselves to to bring this idea back to the forefront of our work. So that that leads into the into last school year. Oh, sorry. You're good. Yeah. Last school year, our our goal was to to define this, you know, what is what are the systems and structures going to look like for this academy model high school at Junction High. Uh the teachers in the building uh said we want to have a group of leaders uh selected to do the

085work. So, you know, Megan's going to talk to you in a moment. She's an academy coordinator. Uh Christine Spalain, Brenda Pomemeroy, Jen Campbell Wilson, they're in the audience here as well as a numerous other teachers. One of which Audrey Newiler is now an assistant principal at Grand Mesa. You know, we had a great uh group of teacher leaders, counselors doing this work. Last year is a lot of hours of work with one of the main outcomes being that program guide you're holding. You know, to really define what what are those pathways going to look like at Grand Junction High School? How do we rebrand our school as an academy model? Uh, okay. Going to the current school year. So, the this is uh this is what's currently happening at Grand Junction High School that I

086want to again I want to give you kind of an image of how is this academy model changing the experience for students at at our school. So, as Jory said, every student belongs to one of those fourmmies. Uh, they get choice in that. So they get to they get to put their top choices down and nearly every student gets their top choice uh or at least their second choice. And then uh within that academy they also have an academy time advisory class. So we re we renamed rebranded our advisory class at Junction to call it academy time so that students would understand that the focus of that class is that academy they're a part of. And you see up there it says uh they really focus on their individual career and academic plans. you know,

087that's always been a requirement uh you know, in our district in in the state, but that class now makes that really intentional for students to work on that through that class. Uh they do some career exploration. Megan's going to talk to you a little bit more about our big career fair called Workforce Development Day that many of you may have uh attended last fall. Uh the Tiger Portfolio, that's uh that's one of the things we're most excited about, or at least I am. Uh that Sorry, here we go. Uh the tiger portfolio is a digital portfolio that reflects that IAP process that students engage in uh through that academy time class at Grand Junction High School. That tiger portfolio is going to have uh artifacts of their of their work. It's going to have resumeums.

088It's really going to be a demonstration of their post-secary readiness and they're going to be able to take it with them after they finish at Grand Nation High School. And then finally, uh, currently in these last two weeks, students are using those pathway sheets that you see in the program guide to select classes for next year. So that's where they're already, uh, be becoming more intentional about, you know, what what are my what are my interests, what are my future goals, and how can I p start to pursue those and explore those at Grand Junction High School. I want to be really I want to stop for a second and be clear like, you know, we're not saying that students have to, you know, be focused on like a major and that's and they're they're

089pigeonhold into that. That's the question I get a lot. They can actually they have plenty of time and in their schedule to actually select multiple pathways to pursue. So, they're really exploring their interests. But if for those students that are really focused on, you know, some of those goals for after high school, they can dive really deep into that. Okay. Go ahead. So, what is this going to look like into the future? Right? That's we're working on that uh always and currently. Uh some of the stuff you see on this slide, we're currently working with our instructional leadership team to to create like a three to fiveyear outlook, a three to five year plan for this work. Uh so some of the ideas up there are not necessarily set in stone yet, but they're in

090progress. Uh as Jory said though, what is established is that we will be focused on academic rigor, community, and culture, and having a career connected experience at Grand Junction High School. uh you can see that some of the things up there uh do reflect the D51 strategic plan and the D51 graduate profile. So we're really excited that this work as we focus on our mission and vision at Grand High School, it it in turn reflects uh the district 51's strategic plan. So kind of bringing it full circle from my time here, uh again the timeline there, uh this is this, you know, this is going to continue into the future. I mean the academy model high schools we've visited uh pter pter high school if you're interested in Fort Collins is one that we you

091know partner with a lot. Uh I mean they're in their 15th year and still learning. So that implementation timeline it will continue. Uh it'll be focused on our mission and vision as as Jory said uh with that goal of having those that individualized experience for students uh really focused on self-actualization through their time at Grandton High School and reflecting the district 51 uh strategic plan which I I'll move it over to to Megan to talk a little bit more about some of those details. So as Jared acknowledged um the D-51 strategic plan is really woven throughout our whole academy model. every component of that plan we see in different ways with what we're doing. Um, as far as it comes to preparing and supporting our students, we're really emphasizing career and college readiness as well

092as our academic rigor. Um, our students will be cohorted in smaller groups um, in certain classes, which allows them to have a smaller community and see more familiar faces and be with others who um, share common interests and goals for careers. Um, our staff have been really instrumental in getting the academy model launched off the ground. We've had um ongoing training throughout the year utilizing our early release using inservice days and other opportunities to train our staff in the academy time advisory program that we're rolling out. And we really want to celebrate um our staff for their flexibility and their willingness to embrace um a completely new way of looking at high school education. And finally, we have um engaged and supportive community partners. They're really um essential for an academy model high school to

093run well. Um we utilize our community partners in a number of ways. I'll talk about one of our major ways, workforce development day, in just a minute. Um and we're looking forward to inviting more partners into our school, as well as bringing our students out into the community to work with our partners. Workforce Development Day was a all day schoolwide event we had on October 3rd. It's something that we're really proud of, really excited about. Um you can see in this picture here, we have students um meeting with uh employees from St. Mary's Hospital and learning more about um life in medicine and what medical careers look like. Uh this job fair that these students are attending, that was really our headlining event. It featured um about 75 tables that exposed uh students to a

094variety of careers sorted by our fourmmies. We couldn't have done workforce development day without um our community partners. We had 125 people join in um in a variety of ways. So both our career fair as well as we had volunteers come in and share about their careers um through pitch your profession. We had community members do mock interviews with our students. We had a a panel about employability skills. We had a panel about military careers. Um there was a really a great diversity in the opportunities that um students were exposed to um through workforce development day. in the future. Um, with college and career readiness being such a critical component of the academy model, we're really looking forward to integrating these kinds of activities into academy time on a regular basis, as well as sending

095our students out into the community for job shadowing and other work-based learning experiences. As principal, I always I always know the indicator of a really great um grassroots staff initiative like workforce development day because those who are directly involved in it um bring their entire family, their spouse, their parents to come help us on that day. And I think some of that was the 129. So, thanks. Um, we felt like it was appropriate to talk a little bit about the new school um, in regard to our academy vision. Um, you know, given that you were getting an update on the new school and I know you saw, um, this graphic in the room configuration once already, but we wanted to just highlight this um, just to show and and really I mean you're going to

096be able to see this firsthand within months. Um, but this new facility is it it really is going to fit and it's it's really going to meet the needs of our learners and our model so well. Um, the flexible learning and teaching areas in the hallway as long as well as just the general makeup of the room and the collaborative spaces. Um, we're going to be able to do things in this school that that we can't that we can only dream of in our current facility. So, we're really thankful for that. All right, that's the end of our presentation to you. We'd like to thank you for all your support of our entire community and of Grand Junction High School. Do you have any questions for us? So, so right now I know that a

097lot of your counselors handle scheduling and things like that. um are my understanding is is that the kids are going to be getting this kind of outline in the beginning and then they kind of pick their path and then they go and talk to a counselor and set up their schedule or something like that. Is that how this and it'll start from 9th grade all the way through 12th grade? Like it'll be inclusive throughout their four years. Is that correct? A lot of questions at once. Sorry, I should have broke those down. Yeah. Um starting last week, we launched our first Academy time lesson on course selection and scheduling. So, all of our students um had the same PowerPoint shared by their teachers that walked them through what building an A period day looks like

098um including core classes and then delving into electives and ensuring that your graduation requirements get met. Um so, we have our students referencing the different pathways in their program guide to give them inspiration and ideas for what elective courses to select. Um, and then they'll build out their eighth period schedule on their own with their academy time teacher and their counselor um, there to support. Like m like Megan mentioned, it's a huge celebration to our teachers because uh, while we're asking them to purge their classrooms and prepare for a move, right? They're filling buckets and getting all that ready. We're also asking them to take on new things like, you know, lessons where they're, you know, where they're partnering with counseling to support student scheduling. So, like Megan said, our teachers are taking on a

099lot with this and we applaud them. All right. I I applaud you because you're taking you're you're teaching the children you're teaching the students how to make their own decisions about their path. So, that's super important because when it starts in high school, then they can make those decisions in college. So, you're building them and you're giving them that that educational path that they're going to need in the future and there's not going to be somebody necessarily standing beside them helping them and holding their hand. So, good job with that. Thank you. question. Um, can they be in two pathways at the same time? If they want to take something like biology, but they also want to do welding. Yes, absolutely. Uh, it's actually, you know, that's the question we get the most, and I

100want to make sure that's really clear. Exactly. They can do multiple pathways. Uh, you know, we'll have students who will be in our high school of business, which, you know, we've had that, uh, magnet program for a number of years at Grand Junction High School. And then, you know, when we designed this, I would have kids in the high school business say, "Well, I know I came to Grand Junction High School because I really wanted to pursue business, but I now I see this, you know, health sciences pathway and it looks really neat." Or I or I might also want to be an engineer and I want to have a business, you know, have business experience and study engineering, you know, so they can Yes, they can choose multiple um the other thing I see

101a lot is students who are just completely embedded in performing arts, right? They they've played an instrument all the way through middle school. They're part of multiple uh you know multiple peru per performance groups but they also they also have other pursuits they want to take on you know academically other other than that. So they can do the performing arts pathway but then they can also do health sciences or something different as well. Absolutely. Yeah. So if they switch pathways does that uh slow down when they would be able to graduate or they still be able to graduate the same amount of time? So, their graduation requirements uh are are not different, right? It's still 25 credits. So, no, they they would still be able to graduate on time. And uh you know, we're we're

102we're kind of vetting as we build this, you know, at what time point if a student, say in their junior year, wanted to switch, you know, pathways. You know, it depends on what courses they took. They have that conversation with their counselor and kind of look at, okay, is it possible to switch to this other pathway and still complete it and be like a pathway completer? You know, we have to kind of see how that's that works. you know, obviously if they switch, you know, their senior year in the spring, it's kind of hard to fit all those classes in at that point. So, it kind of depends on the timing, but yeah, this sounds wonderful. Thank you. Any other questions? Great. Thank you for the onmies model. I know we probably had a lot

103of people wondering what it's going to look like and um great to hear that you guys have you're already have started with it. So, um, that's clarity from the board standpoint cuz I thought we were going to start it with the new building. So, I'm glad to hear that you guys have already been doing it and sounds like the new building will just be complimentary um to what you guys are doing. So, well done. I I want to um make sure we recognize Miss Pomeroy because she was a White Award winner um this weekend. So, we can give her a round of applause for um the only thing I want to mention, I think this is great um because I know even when I met with my student advisory group there, they had some questions

104in this like this answers a lot of the questions, even some of the ones that were raised tonight. So, I'm glad y'all put this um this guide book together. And then yeah, just to reiterate what um board members have said tonight and that you all have said as well, you know, it takes really strong leadership and um a strong staff to be able to take on this big of a shift in the middle of moving into a new building. And so just um commend y'all and everybody in the audience and your staff as well for taking this on. I think it's going to be a really great opportunity for kids and you'll be able to make adjustments along the way. But when we talk about um choice and options for families, this is just going

105to be another great one for um for our district. So, just really commend you all for the work you're doing. So, thank you all. I have one more. I'm sorry. I just wondered, how are you working this with your feeder schools so that your eighth graders will know how it goes so they'll be aware of it when they go to ninth grade? Well, um, yeah, that's that's a great great question. We we actually go out to the feeder schools, our counselors do, and we really promote whatmies is about. and that's that's generally their first introduction into the academy model is this current year. Um we do have aspiration of actually starting it early earlier in middle school as well so that they're well aware of well aware of what they're uh leading into. So thank

106you very much. All right, the board needs a bit of a break. We had an executive session at 4. So, um, we're going to take just a, um, 5m minute break and, um, and be back to resume business. Thank you. All righty. Well, thank you everyone. We're back from our break. So, we now have our middle school ELA resource recommendation. So, Jackie, you and your team, take it away. Yeah, thank you. Good evening. I'm Jackie Anderson. I'm the executive director of teaching and learning. And I'm joined tonight by Nikki Johnston, our secondary director of curriculum and professional learning, by Kristen Gross, our 612 English language arts content specialist, and by Amy Dshaw, our K12 social studies content specialist. And so, we have actually two resource recommendations. Firstly, English language arts at the middle school level

107and then high school social studies to follow. So, you'll hear from Kristen firstly. We'll take your questions and then Amy to follow with social studies. I want to thank you for the opportunity to present tonight. Um, I left the instructional resource selection team yesterday and they were in a very excited and celebratory mood. Um, and there is a lot of energy already in making this recommendation. So, our instructional resource selection team was made up of 17 members. Uh, we tried to make sure that we had two from every middle school. Uh, with the exception of one who just didn't have the capacity to have two people out of the building for the number of days that we needed. Um, on that team, we also had a principal and an assistant principal representing. We had a

108multi-tered system of support, an MTSS specialist. We also had a gifted and talented coach there with us. Uh, the coordinator from Dual Immersion Academy. And then we also had a culturally and linguistically diverse educator among us. Uh we've met over six full days starting in October and ending just yesterday. Um and we also did some activities with teachers. All of them got to exposure as well as special educators at our January inservice activities. In that um series of inservice activities, some of the learning that the IRS has been doing throughout the process came forward. Um, and so we did some embedded learning around literacy accelerators and the what works clearing houses recommendation for interventions in grades four through nine. So really our team was tasked with going in and looking for comprehensive English language arts

109instructional material that would align to the standards as well as support research-based instruction, reading and writing now being integrated together rather than separate, and some tier one supports for all learners. The last adoption was in spring of 2019. There was a writing resource that was adopted and then in spring of 2020, a reading resource and a word study and vocab supplement was also purchased. So over the course of those six meetings, the team really started first with examining performance data of the district and diving into the district 51 strategic plan and thinking about how middle school teachers and that ELA role um helps to meet the needs of the graduate profile. Just because we're not necessarily those high school years, that doesn't mean that they're not formative on that path towards the graduation profile, just

110like we would think of elementary being a foundational piece as well. Then they studied the standards as well as the research around the middle school literacy and science of learning to really establish what look fors we wanted to find in a highquality resource. And then they engaged in really deep study. They had vendor presentations and then they did some detailed scoring making decision before making decisions and making this recommendation tonight. So the recommended resource we have is Savis my perspectives and it is actually a 2025 edition. we got hot off the press um editions delivered to us and then the digital platform came live in January so we were able to explore that as well. So we would adopt consumable student editions for grades six through eight as well as digital licenses for their learning

111management system called uh Savis realize but it also has integration with things like Google classroom or schooly. Um but that is where all the digital tools and resources would also be housed that complement what students would be doing within their student edition as well as offer a lot of the differentiation tools that we would have. So before you or in your materials you'll have the lengthier list of the rationale. Um but just to highlight some of those pieces of why Savis appealed to the team and just so you know when I say the team we had 15 members two had to be absent on the final vote yesterday but had submitted their feedback previously. Um and out of those 15 yesterday we had 100% consensus. It was pretty powerful to see um the teachers really

112come together and have that momentum going forward of this is a not a like it wasn't a 50-50 shot. This is all teachers were really um appreciative of this and they looked at some really high quality resources. It was a tough decision there towards the end when you got to the top three but they really really found some excitement yesterday in what they found within. So, of course, it's rigorous and it's standard aligned learning experiences and we also made sure that it helped to match that D51 strategic plan and our teaching and learning framework, but also that it's really systematic and explicit instruction and reading and writing and language and that there are also many opportunities for speaking and listening embedded within that. Um, we really wanted something that was strong tier one and there

113are additionally some tier two tier 2 tools that are in there as well, but really we wanted instruction that could personalize for inclusive and differentiated teaching for all of our learners. There's an assessment variety um that goes everywhere from like a quick write all the way through a process paper. There's even some media tools where students can make some um unit and end of unit projects to show their mastery in a variety of ways. It also one beautiful thing and nobody steered them this way. They they knew I was Switzerland but they've landed on a resource that aligns. It's a 612 program. So now we are aligned to the high school. So there's some really powerful opportunities with that decision happening where we can have vertical alignment for curriculum and some even professional learning opportunities.

114It's a really interdisciplinary uh text. It's not just texts and it's not just short stories or non-fiction. There's all kinds of articles, videos, all of the like in there. Um we found rigor, we found scaffolds, we found extensions, we found language supports. They're high quality texts and there's really engaging activities for students throughout. Another um appeal that this program had was the audio support to help support learners at our community open in house. We actually had a grandparent who in conversations with her I figured out that I student taught her son uh 22 23 years ago. Um and um but uh he was vision impaired and so they were really appreciative of the support they had within the district and we had all of his materials um turned into braille or he had a magnifying

115piece um that would help with having access but to see the powerful access tools that existed within this. But the audio support also not just for students who might have a visual disability, but really for students who have those gaps in reading and knowing how much that audio support can help students with that first read to engage with the text if they might be some grade levels behind. Um, and then there's also point of use translation which is a really great tool for multilingual learners because it had I can I think it was like 60 languages. Um, and even some of those had the audio as well, but it's point of use. So students are still engaging with the text with their peers, the English text first and then are using those as point of

116use when there's a word or a phrase or a sentence or a paragraph that they struggle with. Um, and we also saw some really authentic crosscurricular connections. A big component of what we were looking for in the science of reading, um, is that kids need more and more background knowledge that helps us with our literacy. And so whenever we can be building knowledge, it's powerful. And this new addition really, really makes sure that we're doing that um with articles, short stories, podcasts. Um it's partnered up with Listen Wise Current Events through NPR. So these are I'm going to tell you pre-negotiated costs. As I told my team, this is before Jackie has jackied them. Um, so knowing that that's still on the table that really this was just their quotes that they sent us as

117well as their professional learning packages. Um, so for teacher resource materials, they throw those in gratus. Um, so but one thing I did want to highlight is we didn't just ask for ELA teacher editions. We wanted to make sure that all of our sped teachers um January inservice was powerful and so having those sped teachers right there and having their own teacher edition make sure it's really co-eing and collaborative and thinking about how can we support all of our learners. So we made sure that we included 30 per grade level which is more educators than we have at each grade level but that includes our special educators. Um student resource materials we're looking at about 4200 times six years. So, they're consumables of about 1,400 per grade. That's every student will have one. Um, knowing

118that students might take them home and lose them. Another cool component is that they're whole punched. So, you can pull out pages, put them in a binder, keep the consumable within the classroom. Um, but every six years is would be paid for up front. So, that's why that price tag seems rather hefty up at $86,000. Well, that also includes the digital licenses and they have a piece called revision assistant that actually helps students through the writing process and gives feedback and helps the teacher um match rubric feedback with um what students might need to do in editing. Um so that was a nice component as well. And each grade level will get to land on two novels or per included per student um first student edition. So, we will have those and be able to

119fill out some classroom libraries and look for some opportunities for book clubs, uh, lit circles, and some other uses of those to supplement, not supplement, to be implemented within the units as well. And then the shipping fees, I'm Google to PowerPoint sometimes doesn't play nicely, but you can see down there, it's in the black, is $80,000, which is really a lot. So, that's going to be something we negotiate with them because these aren't hard cover, they're soft cover, they should be lighter. Um, in terms of the professional learning, you're going to see two numbers. The top one is the vendor provided program activation and implementation essentials. And that's just to get you because the it's a new structure. So, it's really their systematic plan for instruction as well as the digital learning that you would

120need to be able to engage as a teacher. And then they offer up some job embedded services. everything from coaching um to site visits as well. Um, so that package is up at the top. And then we are excited to also partner with Strive like elementary has been doing. And so really to think about literacy consultation in and supporting some literacy goals, having an instructional framework, engaging in school leadership and LCDI support through things like nicks, um, and also having professional learning that's really geared around those evidence-based practices and even having site visits and walkthroughs. So your total in investment pre-negotiated is a little over $1 million. But if you could have been there yesterday at the end to see the excitement on teachers, they were reinvigorated. We ended the day with a toast and

121we circled up and just the emotion that you saw on those teachers faces as they are just really really excited for what the future might hold for learners was very very powerful. Do you have questions for us about uh the literacy recommendation that sits in front of you? Middle school English language arts is the vendor and you've just heard from Kristen all the reasons why we're excited about this recommendation. question I have if you could just explain to me a little bit more how the translation support is working with like the point of view. So basically they it's it's Google translation is baked into the platform. So, a nice piece is whatever is in the textbook is also in the digital platform. And there's an audio bar at the top where you can hit play

122and you can actually slow down and speed up the speed with which it reads out loud. And there's a highlight function where each word is highlighted. But if say I was a student who needed translation support, they you can go in and have it preset up in the settings, but there's a number of languages and you can highlight and then it uses Google Translate and it puts a box right next to the English to show you what that word or phrase or sentence said. And then for some languages, not for all, it actually they can click a play button and they can have the audio read to them in that language as well. Kristen, you mentioned that that's helpful for the first read. You know, our standards are still the English language arts standards. And

123so that's a scaffold, a way to access the text and get into the text to support students and teachers before reading it a second or third time at grade level rigor mastering the standards in English language arts. I really like that. So when the student is reading the text, does the teacher does the teacher put in uh what translation support that child is going to need or does the child put that in? The child would put it in. Um I don't think that the teacher can go in and do it from their level. It would be the student, but of course I can go and shoulder partner with Nikki right now if she needed that support and say, "Hey, here's how we can go about setting that up." And then once it's set up within

124the digital textbook, it saves those settings. So Nikki would have to go in and change it to a different language um to lose the settings that we set up together. Thank you. So what resource are we currently using and how long have we used it for? Our current resource is units of study. And one of Kristen's first slides listed 2019 and 2020. And that's complicated because even prior to those years, many schools had already purchased uh units of study either the writing components or the writing and the reading components. And so it wasn't formalized or official until 2019. And that was then so some buildings already had materials, other buildings were supported with units of study materials. You're all familiar with the changes that we've made at elementary as we've realigned to research around reading

125that our state has supported us with a lot of resources and in fact that's how we began our partnership with Strive. They're a CDE recommended consultant for early literacy. Um and you might wonder if then they're qualified to serve at secondary but they do a lot of work at secondary um and have had great success at the middle school and high school level. And so for part of our professional learning we hope to partner with them again too. But units of study is our current resource that we're now replacing. So do you think this will um complement what we've adopted at the elementary school level? Yeah, Kristen's team looked closely at HMH into reading which also has a middle school version and then this SAVIS version partners with what we've adopted at high school. And

126so the connection here is K12. The science of reading is to use Kristen's words baked in to those resources. They're developed with that research in mind. Um and there was no uh issue with her selection committee. They could have confidence that all of the resources they were reviewed were of high quality in terms of that research alignment. That's only those are only the materials that you vetted and viewed. And so it's not the same resource that we have at elementary, right? But it still partners and couples with that. Is there parts of this that you feel are and forgive me if it's is kind of not in the right realm, but that would I guess amplify or bring learners along that are lagging behind? So, is is there I guess is it baked into the

127cake, you know, or into the resource that there's um parts that would help lift kids who maybe have struggled, you know, and I just I wonder, you know, does it help our educators or or is there still additional work that I mean, I know there's always additional work and and and time that we need to spend with those students, but just wondering if the resource just helps, you know, with that part of that's the purpose of this resource adoption is to accelerate ate our growth in achievement in literacy. And so uh when Amy presents in a minute, you'll see that the last resource adoption in social studies was 2008. Uh so this is a much shorter cycle in English language arts because of our program evaluation because we haven't seen the growth and achievement with

128our current resource that we would expect to see over time. And there's really little time to waste. There's no time to waste and so this is about accelerating our growth and achievement in reading. One of the big shifts, Kristen named it, we want to build more background knowledge. We want to make sure students are accessing grade level text and they're challenged to access grade level text. That's why the scaffolds are important, but it's not in lie or in replacement of that grade level text. And then again, that's why we're partnering with Strive for those strategies to accelerate literacy. Yep. So, how long do we give ourselves if we adopt a resource and we are not seeing the outcomes we want? like how what is our time frame? Two, three years or or what kind of

129data do we need to know whether something's working? That's the question, right? It depends. It's what access do you have to data and in what windows? And so in elementary grades, we're accessing data at beginning of year, mid year, and end of year. That's pretty reliable and consistent. And we can see those gains already mid year um with the shifts that we've made in elementary. At middle school, we don't have the same suite of assessments. We have a different suite of assessments. And so we have to look at those together. We have to look at NWA combined with CMS. And we do the same in elementary. We have internal assessments that we use as measurements. And then we pull program evaluation data not only from those student measures over time but data from teachers. So

130that feedback from the field is really really important. We're running program evaluation surveys right now at uh all grade levels and we need that too. That's an important component of it. So you would expect to see changes soon right away in six months but there's also an implementation right uh dip or slide often and a lot of this is new learning for educators in our system. So when and correct me if I'm wrong but um so in paying for this they're guaranteeing so we have access to it for six years or is that am I yeah all of our cycles are sixear cycles since the mill in 2017. Okay. Um, and so a cycle could be shorter or longer depending on program evaluation. Okay, so an example of that is elementary math. We're at the

131end of a cycle for elementary math. So the committee that would review that data is the CRGC, the curriculum resource governance committee. Uh, and we'd look at growth and achievement recently in math and we'd look at the program evaluation data to determine if in that cycle we would go back for readoption or if we'd stick with the resources that we have. The key here are cycles of improvement. cycles of improvement coupled with data or what what I'm terming program evaluation. Okay. And program evaluation led us here to this place knowing that we need a new adoption to support literacy for secondary. Thank you. Yep. Angela, did you have I didn't mean to steal all your questions. Yeah. And again, these are pre-negotiated costs. Well, I think you know and we've had these discussions is you

132know curriculum resource adoption is expensive obviously you can see and I and kudos to you because I know that you really do um try to work a bargain um with them but again it's still a big price tag regardless right it is a resource it's books it's shi shipping alone is is crazy um so I think that from you know a board perspective we're looking at how often are you changing a resource cuz it's twofold, right? One, if it's not working, you don't really have time or you don't want to take too much time to course correct, but secondly, there's another outlay of funds um for an additional resource. And so, I think that's um kind of the the crux of the whole thing, right? Is you're you're hoping it's a great resource um because

133of the outlay of of funds that you're going to be putting out there, too. Y so in the first in the first two years we look for those results and then in years three through five that's a different system for program evaluation to echo what you're saying and of course we're dependent here on mill dollars uh for resource adoption in district 51 prior to 2017 there's there wasn't a source of funding to support consistent and systemic resource adoption certainly not in cycles nothing of the magnitude since then so I have just one other question um you referenced um one uh source for current events. Is it a are they using just that one source for the So it's a program called Listenwise the it's NPR podcasts that the company has aligned to units so they're

134topical to what kids might be reading within their class of units. There's not as far as I know any other current events pieces. Other programs that we looked at had different components. Um like Steady Sync had one called blasts but this is the one that they have for this one and it's national um and it's aligned to the textbook so it's not just like whatever's whatever's hot today like they wouldn't listen to this necessarily like Toby Keith passing away today or it's really aligned to whatever the unit themes were. I guess my my concern with that is just um getting information just sort of from one angle and not a not a multitude of different angles, especially in current events. Yeah. So that that just concerns me a little bit. Um and just what I've

135reviewed of it and previewed of it before, it's not like a full NPR story. It's more of like a short snippet and it's really about the speaking and listening standards. um and students engaging in those as opposed to it's not usually anything from that argumentative angle that's saved more for the topics within the book that do have both perspectives. These are more for that speaking and listening piece because um a lot of times people forget that the sometimes the standards of evaluating an argument is made through hearing somebody without having the text in front of you. And so that's really like the stretch of what that program is trying to do. Um, and it is a um, it's not baked into the daily lesson plans or the unit plans. It's there as a component to

136bring in one more text, one more view. So, they really are engaging in lots of different views within that unit. It just might not be that NPR has two people um talking within that, you know, and we curriculum teams teams of teachers then come together to support us in implementation and writing guidance and our UCIA. So if that surfaced as a it surfaced as a concern, we'd address it through our curriculum teams. Yeah. Okay. I I just want to assure our community that that we're we're being really broad in what we're presenting to the students that way. Yeah. Great. Any other questions for the middle school? Great. Thank you for that. So, all right then. I guess we're moving into high school social studies. Social studies. Okay. Does this work? Um, I am really excited

137to be here tonight representing my resource selection team and their recommendations. Uh, they would liken our work uh to climbing Mount Everest. as Nikki rushes through our slides. Sorry. Um, it's how it felt. Now you can go forward. Um, our resource selection team was represented by one to two teachers from every high school of our comprehensive high schools and to 89, the exception being our we also had a high school counselor, a culturally linguistically and diverse teacher and a special education teacher. We met seven full days from August to February. Um and for two different uh high school inservices, all of the high school teachers were involved in part of our selection process. We were tasked with looking for core social studies instructional materials aligned to the Colorado academic standards and social studies. You can

138see there we have five areas of our standards and we have three credits for graduation. We wanted to um provide the greatest path of mastery for all of those standards in those three credits while preserving advanced placement and concurrent enrollment options for our students. Our last adoption, like Jackie said, was 2008 or three presidential administrations ago. Our standards have been revised three times since we've last adopted, the most recent being in 2022. Um over the course of seven meetings, we examined a lot of data. Um first about what standards our students have the opportunity to master in which kinds of classes. We looked at standardized test scores uh nationally and locally. Uh we studied pros and cons of different course pathways and different ways we could uh help students master those standards before looking at

139a deep study of our resources grounded in scoring on our district rubric before making our recommendations to hear for you tonight. So part of our work um is about those graduation requirements. Uh we are updating the course scope and sequence in our graduation requirements to read uh one year of world history with geography standards embedded a year of US history, a semester of American government, and a semester of economics and personal financial literacy. The number of our credits has not changed. What has changed is that ninth grade course to be more focused on world history and the change of economics from being an elective to being a required course for graduation to give students all of our students the opportunity to master all of the standards in those five buckets. Um our resource recommendation is

140also coming to you um from the publisher same publisher Savis. Um for world history, we're asking for the world history uh the modern era which goes from reformation to present. Uh US history uh from reconstruction to the present and American government interactive. We'll also be uh recommending additional purchases of an economics resource that was adopted in 2021 to support the larger offerings of that course. Uh because we're embedding the geography standards into world history. Previously, we had a geography based course. Um, we really thought it worked best to integrate into world history when you look at the rigor of both sets of standards, but really that geography and high school standards are about things like migration, human populations, environmental impacts, resources, the impacts of conflicts, cultural diffusion, and regions of the world. It's more than

141just making a map. And so, they felt that those really worked well in a world history course. to support this work. Um there will be a curriculum team, but we're going to lean on some resources that the district already has. Um our library services ABC Cleo databases both in world geography and world history. We have a subscription to ArcGIS and they have geography inquiries that um align to a lot of our standards. And the Savis Realize team is going to give us some access to their world geography book even though we're not purchasing it. Lessons that we identify specifically to meet our standards will be provided to teachers and students. Give you a moment to review either on the screen or on your packet our rationale statements. In summary, the biggest piece for us was

142the depth, the rigor, and the breadth of these resources as opportunities to teach all the standards to mastery. Uh you can see here the uh the next side of uh the financial investment. Um so we're purchasing three different books from Savis. The world history, the US history, and the McGruters. Uh they're providing the teacher materials to us at no charge. Uh like Kristen, I am also including copies for special educators and culturally linguistic diverse teachers at the high schools who support our social studies instruction. Um each of the books were getting eight uh eight print edition 800 print editions and the licenses and then additional number of license to meet the number of students for six years. Um shipping costs slightly less than Kristen's even though my books are super super heavy. Um and then

143the TCI additional purchase there you can see we'd like to buy 500 additional print editions and 500 additional licenses to bring us to the total number of sections that we'll need to be offering in the coming years. um professional learning for this. Um again, the SAVIS program activation and implementation essentials using their job embedded service days and working to maybe provide two subdays, one each semester for each school team for me to work with them on implementation, especially around that 9th grade course, which will have two sets of standards integrated. Um and the total investment is about $767,000. What questions might you have for us around high school social studies the process or the recommendation or the professional learning? So with the new high school standards um the genocide is is that encompassed in the

144world history? Okay. And then that course will be titled world studies the integrated course and then the other one was the Colorado government right? Yes. So Colorado government is now um in our civic standards there's no resource that's going to provide anything. So we'll be leaning on the um state they have a database of primary sources and stuff to support the instruction of our state constitution. And then also I work I talked to a professor yesterday about geography, but she has a whole um set of resources around what our state constitution specifies for different things as a way for students to access our institution. Great. Other questions? Do you have a copy of this one that we can take a look at? We have copies of it. Yep. So just out of curiosity, um the

145selection of the teachers that were on this board or the members of the board, how exactly are they selected? Is it by a lottery? Is it just like, hey, I want to do this? How how do you pick those people to ensure that you have like a variety of people throughout the district that are, you know, representing? We have a survey uh and we have consistent processes that we follow per our charter from CRGC, the curriculum resource governance committee. So we invite teachers to apply. They fill out a form and of course include your name and your school. We want to make sure that we have representation across schools, your years of experience and your your interest uh in joining the team. And at the high school level especially, we want to make sure that

146those teachers teach different courses and have taught different courses over time. Um so we're looking for diversity on the team across schools, backgrounds, years of experience and interest u and also expertise and willingness to serve on the team. It's a commitment uh and often um you know not only are they missing days from the classroom but time after school, time on task. Yep. So once those you guys receive those applications and you ultimately select That's right. Yep. and then norm as a team once in the first couple of days of convening norming around what's our purpose how will we behave how are we going to think Kristen and Amy did a lot of work with their teams about how how should we operate as a team and how should we think through these processes and

147who are our stakeholders and what are we committed to so that comes from their leadership the norming that happens and I I know that you were saying for the middle school or for the ELA curriculum you had like 100 100% buy in on that one so what is the the ratio is it a majority vote on this when it comes down to we use consensus voting for decision- making and so that's a fivepoint liyker scale and we practice over time and if all members of your team are a three four or five uh all three four and five then you have a decision by consensus and sometimes everyone in the room is a five and sometimes uh most of the room is a five or a four and you have a few people who are

148a three they're still committed and can support the decision though they may have had some other opinions throughout the process. And so consensus was met multiple times throughout their processes. We use consensus votes to eliminate. We use consensus votes to recommend. And yesterday really agreement agreement which I yes my group was all fives as well on the resource recommendation and I will say you know in terms of like the high school uh people who served on the committee, a lot of buildings went back and talked about who could serve us best and why before they applied. Um because they have such a many people get pulled out for a variety of things and you don't want the same person representing you on the nick and the other committees. So, these were teachers that may not

149serve on those other things that the buildings really felt could represent them the best. Before it moves to um a consent vote in the next board meeting, you'll have updated copies of the quotes from those vendors. And if you have other questions in between, we're happy to answer them and give you access to materials, too. Yes. So, um, for the newest board members, if you actually want to see the resource and like touch it, open it, feel it, then you can just get with Jackie and they'll provide go down to her office and you can pick up the resource and and look at it. Yep. Is that right? Yep. Okay, that's right. How many copies do you have? You have plenty to We've got enough. We'll figure it out. Some of them I only have

150one. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be great. And then are we you're are we supposed to vote on this business meeting? Two weeks. Two weeks. Right. So just so you kind of know the time frame that because there's a time frame here to uh obviously get it ordered, get it here and and start getting it rolled out. So just so y'all know what what our time frame is that we're looking at. Yeah. And for context, these quotes are actually pretty similar. The shipping costs are more for uh English language arts because the consumables ship every year for six years. So it's the shipping over multiple years. Go get them like we rent truck and go get them. I mean honestly it's like wages, you know, somebody's and at high school these are three courses and at middle

151school these are three grade levels. And it's the difference in our professional learning at middle school that uh makes these two quotes look different on paper. Yep. Oh, and then um No, that's good. I'm I answered my own question, right? Okay. Right. Thank you. And yeah, I'll just say I appreciate I know the board feels this way, too. The amount of work that y'all put into every time we go through um the adoption of curriculum, you know, I will say that talking to folks from other districts. Not every district's um putting as much time and effort into selection of resources as y'all are, and it really is a model. So, I I appreciate the time you all put in, all the teachers that are um giving of their time as well. Um and while that,

152you know, there's no perfect process, but you'll have I I say perfect implementation of the process you have. So, really appreciate all the time and effort y'all put into selecting the resources and having the open houses and everything. Thank you'all. Thanks, Christine. Thank you. Okay. All right. I think Dr. Hill, are you up for the elementary declining enrollment committee update and enrollment projections? Um, so there's a handful of slides. Just warn you ahead of time. Um, so if people end up getting up and walking out, I won't be offended. Um, but I lost you, too. It's really gotten bad. Um, she's got to go get a drink. Okay. Um well the first part of this is a lot is some review. Anyways um you know as we're uh wanting to give an update to the

153board obviously um most recently we put out information around um no decisions being made around elementary school closures for the next school year. Um and so that's already out there. Um but as we were putting this together, thought about um it might be good to refresh folks memory on why we've had to make some decisions in the past and kind of where we're at um in terms of declining enrollment and why we're having to make some of these decisions. So the beginning is a bit of a review. Um so what I want to go over is just again restating the problem that we're dealing with. Um talk about some current enrollment uh numbers, talk about enrollment projections which we have not um presented uh at the board level uh for this year. and then um

154talk a little bit about the followup after um the East Middle School and the Fruit 89 closure decisions and the impacts that have had on um staffing and budget. Um and then I'll talk a little bit about the EDC pathways. Obviously the the closure consolidation one has been the um the biggest topic and it also was the one that was identified as the most viable by the EDC committee. Um talk a little about next steps and then answer any questions um there might be. So, if you remember back to when the EDC um was uh put in place, we came up with a problem statement that was that uh current declining student enrollment negatively impacts D-51 resources and infrastructure. The impact limits D51's ability to assemble the critical resources and infrastructure to adequately support and

155implement the strategic plan. And we desire to reallocate resources to create safe, successful classrooms for our students and staff. And I think everyone knows at this point we've been dealing with declining enrollment for the last few years. Um, you know, I would say that that was um for us as a district it wasn't new information, but it was probably made more public um last spring. Uh January was when Shannon uh first came and gave that presentation to the board to really talk about um uh what the future projections might look like for our district and the impact it's had on us. But we've experienced um about a 10% student decline um since 2019 uh for a myriad of reasons. Um I just want to refresh um folks memory around some of the presentations that we've

156received as a board and also that the EDC committee received. So this was from the state demographer if you remember back when um she presented she presented virtually to the EDC and then um also um we brought slides forward to the board. But just some of the trends that they're looking at um around jobs, labor force, population, aging, um housing that those are all connected um and then population growing at a slow rate. Um migration and mobility also slowing um for our state and then the concent uh concentrated growth is really in that the metro areas. Um and then also the impacts that aging is having on um different parts of the state as far as the aging population. Um and so um she also shared with us um sort of a big picture for

157um growth in Colorado. Um 2010 to 2020 was the uh second slowest decade for us in terms of growth. Um and then that 20 to 21 was the slowest year for US uh growth rate with 17 states um losing uh population. Um and then also between 21 and 22 19 states. Um so it's not our it's not only our problem, it's a problem across the state and across the country as well. Um if you remember she talked about um the different components of the change when you look at um uh natural increase versus uh in migration. Um and so where we've seen um loss of uh natural increase, but we've seen some inmigration, but also um later on the slides talk about the age range of most of that in migration and where that's coming

158from. So you can see in that little um and I apologize if it's small on the screen. You also have it in your in the the folder if you need to pull it up on your Chromebook, but um you can see the decade change and the amount of um population change over time and how it's uh definitely slowed for our um state in the last decade. Um and then this was just something that she tal she showed about the under 18 um population from 2010 2020. And you can see um the uh the change that we've seen in the Grand Junction area um is actually having a decline um in that age range. So population under 18 increased by 38,000 over the decade across the state. Um but only 5% of that total growth was

159from um under 18. And then I know this y'all are familiar with this one, but um the the two different decades, this is for Mesa County, um where we saw a lot of our uh population um net migration was from um the uh 55 and up uh age range, which um traditionally do not bring uh students into the school system. Um, and then she also talked about Colorado as a whole forecasting out um, and where she's projecting that we'll be um, through 2030. Um, and you can see uh, that population change that there's a um, decline uh, in that 0 to 17. Um, and then you can see the different uh, age ranges um, for our state. So while we may be growing in certain areas, it's not necessarily growing in um students and um

160and families. Then this was our our uh county. Um and you can see that we've also seen the decrease as well. Um you remember this slide uh she talked about and again this this is dependent upon a lot of different factors but um maybe I think she said at that time maybe by 20 uh 36 um I'm sorry 20 2035 we would return to preandemic number of students within our county and remember she looks at countywide data she doesn't look at district specific data and so um so that she's basing this on a lot of different things but maybe by 2035 we'll be back to pre- pandemic um student population within our county. And obviously a lot can change between um now and then as well. Okay. And then um this was just some of

161the forecasting factors that she uses. So again, population growth slowing um births have slowed, migration mobility slowing, harder to attract and retain people. Fastest growth is in the 65 and up range. Um, we heard this from the um the Mesa County folks that presented a couple uh about or last month about we need to make sure that we're ready for new workers with the retirements that might happen and then also jobs that can take care of folks as we um have an aging population in our area as well. Okay. Um this was actually I know it's a lot on the screen but this was I I reached out to Elizabeth. she's the um state demographer and I reached out to her after she had presented and just said, "Hey, do you have any um any

162updated data and she's going to provide more in the future as well." Um but this was um some of the information that she sent me back in an email and she basically just said um we've evaluated the population by age data as a whole and created a net migration by age over the decade comp uh comparison which is pretty interesting for Mesa County. Um it really changed over the decade primarily driven by change in economy. Uh the dashed line in this last decade and the solid uh one is the prior decade. Um this last decade Mesa had an out migration of young adults. Uh this was driven by the economy. Um this is always what leads to the slowdown in school enrollment and uh top of the declines in birth rates. Um I would keep

163it and she just suggested keep an eye on the economy. chat with GJ on a regular basis to see what they are seeing for job growth. Uh and also keep an eye on housing development in the city. Both those indicators will give us a general idea of how things are going um and if there's a lot of job growth and often uh you'll see more migration and potential for kids. So just things that we um keep an eye on. But um again, it's just reinforcing some of the data that she had before around the last decade seeing um slow growth for our younger folks. Um y'all have seen this, but this is our birth rates for the county um over time and um we're uh at one of the lowest rates that we've seen in

164a few decades. Um and so that trend is uh has been continuing. Um and this is the most up-to-date data that we've had. This was from Mesa County Public Health that came last month. So again, just in case folks didn't uh see that presentation, I just pulled a few slides out. Um but again birth rate uh has been decreasing for the last 15 years. Um and she talked about how can we adapt um to better meet the needs of that changing population. She talked about different factors uh greater access to birth control and then that inward migration of older adults. Um, and again, this is showing that breakdown of our county um, uh, versus Colorado. Um, and that in migration of the of an older population into Mesa County versus, uh, the state as a

165hold as a whole. Um, and so again, as I said before, don't they don't traditionally um, have students enrolling in the school district. Um, and then again, um, you can see the the population over time between a net migration and a natural increase. We've seen obviously a lot more um net migration, but again that population has been an older um group mainly and then again uh older adults are making up a greater and greater share of the population in our county. Um this was from CDE. I know the board's seen this, but um this is some of the data that they just put out recently uh for statewide data. And um essentially they just said that it's the second straight year that student enrollment in Colorado public schools has declined. Um with the 2324 school

166year student enrollment reaching the state's lowest mark in a decade. Um so I mentioned before it's not a Mesa County problem, it's a statewide problem. Um the last time Colorado public school enrollment was this low was 2013. Um, and then for this last school year, the largest combined enrollment decrease occurred in preK through first grade. Um, so again, those are the kiddos that are going to be moving through our system over time. Largest overall grade decreases in 20 23 occurred in the first grade, which declined by 3.91%. Um, and then kindergarten saw 1,68 fewer students than were in kindergarten the previous year, which is a 1.79% decrease. Um, a total of 113 of the state's 178 school districts reported drops in enrollment. And then you can see the breakdown. And this is all linked in

167that letter that I sent out to staff and families. This was from CASBY. It was interesting that all these different entities that we partner with and work with have been uh sending out information because it is a concern statewide. And so this was some of their um data around um forecasting for K12 enrollment and broken down by areas of the state. And so you can see we encompass part of that western Colorado. It's not western is not just us, but we're a part of that. Um and you can see the the decline that we're seeing compared to other parts of the state. And then obviously there are parts of the state that are actually growing. Um I know we were in the meeting um last week with some folks from Gley. They're actually seeing an

168increase in enrollment um for different reasons. And so again, job growth, affordability, those are all factors that play into why you might see an increase. So let's talk about current enrollment. So, um, this year alone, we've declined at the elementary school, uh, level by 233 students. Um, at the middle school level by 40 students and at the high school level by 38 students. Um, and I just I pointed out in the letter, but a decline of 233 students, especially with the size of schools we have here, um, that could be an entire elementary school uh, population that you lose in one year. And then over time, since 2019, when we started seeing the decreases, um, we've lost over 1,800 students. And that's why I mentioned at the beginning it's close to a 10% um decrease

169in students. Um so for projections again we haven't shared this with the board publicly yet but um these are just for the out years for the next two years. Um you know you always want to be cautious of trying to project out too far into the future because a lot of things could change, right? Birth rate could start going up. Um we could have major companies move out here and and bring employees with families. Um a lot of things could change. So we we just showed for the next two years what the projections look like, but our demographer is projecting that we will decline by about 590 students this coming school year with 349 of those students um occurring at the elementary school level. Um and then again, we just know that this isn't sustainable

170um over time and we've got to we've got to make some changes. Um and so that's what those two projected with trending bars are. Again, trends could change um but that's what his projections would show over time. This is obviously really hard to see um on the screen, but the main thing here is that all those cohorts have been uh decreasing over time. So, our number of kindergarteners coming in, our number of first graders, second graders, they've been smaller cohorts over the years, and so we're seeing that trickle through our school district and causing um declines across the district over time. Um so, I just want to revisit this. I know um don't necessarily want to revisit it, but I think it's important to um talk about why we had to make some decisions that

171we've made uh with uh both the middle school level and then the fruit of reconfiguration. Um so just a reminder about how we staff our building. So systemic staffing staffing allocations are assigned to schools based on student counts. Schools are able to staff to school needs within a set parameter. Um and those allocations are in SSE. the systemic staffing equivalents which consider number of hours worked and average average cost of the position. So if a if a school declines in enrollment, they're going to decline in staffing. Um if they increase in enrollment, they would increase in staffing. And so um that's how we staff our buildings. Um when you think about middle school and this was pre-closure of East when we were having a conversation around um the need for uh doing a middle school

172closure. The initial preconolidation um um or pre-closure staffing for 2023 24 school year projected overages of about 22.8 positions at the middle school level. So to put that into context at that time we had eight middle schools. So across those eight middle schools and it obviously would impact each middle school differently, but we were going to be having to cut about 23 FTE from the middle schools. And that was just at that point um as enrollment continues to decline. We would have to continue to make cuts. And so you think about the number of positions in an in a middle school um right that that's almost like you're cutting a whole middle school over time as well. And so we knew that wasn't sustainable. And so we needed to make a change there. And again,

173one middle school might have had to lose six or and another might have had to lose one, but um overall for the district, we were looking at potentially having to cut 23 um FTE. The average classroom um uh SSSE teachers and classified support per middle school last year was uh 26.5. Seven of the eight middle schools were overstaffed based on projected student uh counts ranging from 2 to 23% over. um and reductions in utilizations of temporary funding in prior years meant that addressing this level of overage while maintaining all buildings would have meant reducing academic programming and student support. So this is why there was a an impetus behind we've got to do something at the middle school level in particular um which led to the closure of East. Okay. And then that breakdown over

174on the right. This is all information from a prior presentation that was given to the board, but you can see where we were projecting we were going to have to make cuts for this school year um across the different levels. Okay. Um so 14.96 of the middle school staffing overages were addressed through closure. Um closure resulted in a total uh recurring annual savings of about $1.3 million. Uh in addition to the east uh middle school savings for um SSSE were reduced at schools not directly impacted by the closure. So $300,000. In total, we recouped about 83% of the middle school unfunded positions um for the 2324 budget year. 1.6 6 of the 1.9 million in unfunded positions. The remainder um again at that time we were saying was going to be addressed through the fruit

175of returning um to traditional grade configuration which was a decision the board made back in December. And then um Esser dollars were covering that um those remaining unfunded positions. That's how we were subsidizing with grant funds. Um this is really blurry but um this was to try to give you an idea of um the staffing impacts at the other middle schools because of closing one middle school. So because one middle school was taken offline um you can see in the um in the first column you had the student count as of 9 uh 23. The change in student count from original projections. Okay. Um because those were before um closure, school of choice boundary changes, all that. um the original staffing that we were going to have to do. So you could see like booklift

176we were going to have to cut over 6 FTE from that building. Uh Fruda we were going to have to cut over three and a half. Um Grand Mesa 6.7. So those were the cuts that we were that's where the 22.8 comes in was we were those were the cuts we were going to have to make at the middle school buildings. Um and then the adjustments that were made because of the closure. um those buildings instead of losing 6.17, Bookliff gained five um FTE because they took on students from the closed school. Um same thing with um Orchard Mesa, they were going to lose FTE. They gained FTE because they gained um student enrollment also through moving the challenge program over there. Um and then the same thing with Graham Mesa. um uh less of

177a decline or less of a a cut that they had to make at at that school because of increase in students that were added there. Um and then you can see West obviously um we were going to have to cut 7 and we ended up adding six. So just trying to again this is old data but I wanted to reiterate the reasons why um making a decision around a closure the financial and staffing impacts it has for the district. Um while it it it's not something that we enjoy having to do um it has a direct impact to the other buildings across the district as well. Okay. I ask a question on um when you're looking at the Fruda adjustment that they lost four. Is that just the middle school or is that middle school

178and 89? That is I believe that's just the middle school. Um and remember this was pre this was before we made the decision to do the reconfiguration in Fruda. So, um, not I don't believe all those adjustments were ended up being made. We subsidized some of that through ESSER funding. Um, so it should have been reduced by four. I don't know that we reduced completely by four this year by that consolidation or by that reformation. Yeah, it really is going to probably help with those numbers. And I do have that on another slide in here, but yeah, so this was when we were just talking about a middle school closure um when we closed east. Um and then Fruma 89 closure obviously impacted it as well. Um and that's where this comes in. So again,

179I'm not going to go through all this, but you all know that Fruda also was declining in students um and that we were um overstaffed currently by nine in the Fruda secondary schools and that was going to grow um going into next school year as well. um subsidizing 9ft. The average teacher salary equates about $800,000. Um and so we've been using extra funds to subsidize that. Um but that's obviously not um sustainable. And so this board looked at um based on the projections um and what could happen next year in those schools um that we were going to that number was going to grow in the number of FT were going to have to pull from the buildings or the subsidy would have been over about $1.2 million. Um and then again, it wouldn't have

180actually solved any problem if we just subsidized. It would have just um been putting it off um down the road. And so the closure of the A9 building is going to also have a um positive impact on um being able to staff buildings better and and not being not having to subsidize as much uh staffing and especially with the grand dollars running out. Um this was that really busy one that I showed y'all before, but uh to try to show that breakdown of um that this has been happening over time in the Fruit area. It wasn't like this just last year all of a sudden we had to reduce FTE. Um there was a reduction in 2021 by 5 a half FTE then again in 2022 by 3.2 um 2023 by 10.5. And so that's

181a total of close to 20 FTE and the fruit of secondary schools since that time. Um and so um again we subsidized in 2023 that 9.34 um FT overage which came out to over $800,000. And then with the projections we were showing for next year that that would have grown to 13.6 FTE which would have been over $1.2 million on average um uh teacher cost or FTE cost. And so um that's why we brought it to the board to say we needed to make some decisions around um fruit 89 as well. And so um I want to be clear, we showed this before, we were clear about it before as well that this was these were projections based off of PSOC um some other factors that go into play as well. So these aren't definitive

182middle school is definitely going to get additional 10 FTE. Um but this was based off those projections prior to and we're still finalizing that school of choice process and adjusting staffing um um for the buildings based off of that. And so that process is going on right now and uh remember remember our timeline was to have staff uh positions posted by February 15th and so we're still on track to be able to do that and we'll have a better idea of what those FT will look like. Mainly the the point of this was to show that instead of having to cut on that last slide 13.6 FTE from those three schools. Um we are actually going by reducing one secondary school out there, we're actually going to be adding FTE to the remaining two buildings

183because they'll be taking on additional students. Um moving eighth grade to the middle school and nth grade to the high school. Um which will help those buildings not have to cut FTE over time. Okay. Um, so this is um new and it's also based off of some of the data that we've gotten back from the folks that are going through the long range facility planning process right now. So I will tell you that this isn't finalized. This is me taking their data and trying to run the numbers and so there could be some shifts from this as well, but it gives you kind of an idea of I was curious to look to see um how many available seats we have within our buildings. And this is only looking at permanent capacity. So permanent capacity

184does not include modulars. Um so many of our buildings have modulars and so that would actually add to these numbers if you included modulars but I know as a district um it would be great to get to a point where we don't have to have modulars at our buildings um for a variety of reasons. So I just looked at permanent capacity but just know that there are additional seats as well if you included um modular. So currently we are utilizing about 73% of our permanent seats um at the elementary level. uh we're utilizing 71% if you include temporary seating. Um the schools range anywhere from 53% utilization to 99% utilization at the elementary level. Um and then talking to our um the long-range facility planning folks um kind of the industry standards around having 85%

185of your utilization of your buildings um so you're getting the best use of them. And so we're obviously not there as a district um at the elementary level and it ranges from from school to school. At the middle school level prior to the east closure um we were utilizing about 65% of our permanent seats at the middle school. Um that percentage increased to 72% after the closure at East um because essentially you're taking those seats offline. Um and that percentage will increase um to 74% um after the closure of 89 and the move of Fra Middle School. So again, it's still not up to the 85% kind of 80 to 85% what you're looking for, but it at least got us further away from 65% utilization across the district for our middle schools. And at

186the high school level, prior to the 89 closure, we're utilizing about 88% of our permanent seats. That percentage will increase to about 95% after the closure of um A9 and the movement of the 9th grade to Fruit Monument High School. Again, there are modulars at some of our high schools, so that number would change as well. So, as a district, after the closure of East Middle School and Fruit 89, we'll be utilizing about 78% of our permanent seats as a district. Um, but with projections of enrollment continuing to decline, um, that number is just going to get worse. So, it's just it's it's an And over here on the right, it shows you actual number of seats. And so when you start talking about how do we best utilize our buildings, um how if we're

187going to invest in buildings, you heard the presentation earlier, um where are we going to prioritize bond dollars in the future to um to to put them towards aging facilities. Um those are the kind of decisions we're going to have to make. And if we have available this many available seats, is it is it um smart to invest in all of our buildings um knowing that we're maybe not going to need to utilize those buildings on the road? So that's all going to be a factor in this as well. So I just thought it was good information for the board to see and again I'll have updated numbers once we're done with the longrange facility planning process. Um that's a lot of available seats right now across the district. That is a lot. And I

188just want to reiterate the the part that you said about that's where we are now. But we know our enrollment is going to continue to decline over the next at least five years. So that number that utilization number is going to get worse. I mean in the in the case of um Fra 89 and and the middle school coming together at 95% that's great but that's going to decrease. Yeah, it should it the projections would show that happening um over time and again I just think um it all plays into the conversations we're going to be having moving into the future around um where we want to utilize uh capital dollars and um and investing in our buildings. So because yeah, if you have growth down the road, right, you want to make sure that

189you have buildings that can meet that need. So you don't want to you don't want to eliminate to the point where you um where you can't adjust for that growth, but also that's going to take time and those buildings are going to continue to age over time. And so we just need to be really strategic about where we invest capital funds. Yeah. I mean at 95% that might even be a little bit high, right? I mean it doesn't give us a lot of wiggle room for any kind of growth. And I should say too that um again that doesn't include the um the modulars and so once you throw in modulars that percentage declines a little bit for um high school. Yeah. Um so talk real quick about the EDC pathways. I know you know

190all these but this was these were the different pathways that the declining enrollment committee came up with um through that process. And so um there was five pathways that were identified. The first one being um school closures, consolidations. That was um the most supported pathway with over 80% of the voting members ranking it as the most viable option. And so that's obviously one that we're still exploring. Um pathway two was looking at a mill levy override. And so the committee heavily supported the district exploring potential for additional mill levy overrides uh to help address funding shortages. Um pathway three was talking about u promoting and uh and increasing the robust and align options that we have as a district. So, could we use that to um potentially attract um families from other options or, you

191know, as a selling point for families that maybe are looking to move to the to the area? Um and so that was pathway three. Pathway four was looking at um subsidizing and providing flexible support through possible increases in state per pupil funding. Um and then pathway five was an ongoing evaluation of central office staffing of programs. Um so looking at the first pathway around school closures or consolidations um again all this was shared in the the letter that went out but um obviously this is a sensitive topic um one that we we don't take lightly. We want to make sure that any decision around school closure consolidations at the elementary level utilizes the most up-to-date data is timely and considers all impacts. So again, I the message that was put out, I'm not bringing a

192recommendation to the board for this year um for any elementary school closures for the following school year. Um and then these four buckets underneath are really trying to highlight why that decision was made. So up-to-date data, again, we're in the middle of that um 25-year facility master plan. You heard the presentation tonight. We're already getting a lot of good data from that. And so we want to make sure that that process plays out and that we have the most up-to-date data on um facility condition scores um and educational adequacy and then also those building utilization numbers because that plays into the closure criteria that is up in the top right of the screen um parts of that criteria. This data will also help inform decisions on which schools meet the criteria for closure consolidation that

193were developed by the EDC and then we anticipate the data will be finalized in March. So that's one of the reasons why um we did not make sense to bring forward a recommendation right now. Also timely um we've learned from prior experience that the decision needs to be made in the fall semester of the school year prior to the school year of the closure consolidation. Um I don't think uh anybody wants to go through u making the decision in the spring like we had to do with u with east and so um we learned from that and so since we're already into February it doesn't make sense to bring a recommendation forward right now. Um, and then community impact. Obviously, um, we want to have time once we've identified some schools that would be candidates,

194um, to be able to go out and meet with the communities and talk to them about, um, the why behind it. Um, have a conversation about, um, what that impact would look like, but also to have ideally more of a robust conversation about the future of the communities that will be impacted and how we can um, essentially um, bring communities together through this process. So, if the closures have to happen or consolidations, um how can we ensure that it's um it's more of a collaborative process with the communities that are being impacted than feeling like it's communities maybe pitting themselves against each other, which we we don't want obviously. And so, this provides us a little bit more of a runway to do that. And the last one was around policy. You know, when the

195board voted on the um uh recommendations from the EDC, um there was a commitment to creating a closure consolidation policy. And so we're using the spring semester to create that before we'd make any decision uh in the fall um for a closure or consolidation. Um so what does that mean for staffing? So because we're not closing any elementary schools for next school year, how does that impact staffing for next year? Right. Um so we're projected a decline again by about 590 students next year as a district. 349 of that decline projected at the elementary level. Those are projections. Um so a loss in enrollment obviously means loss in per people pupil funding from the state for those uh students which means reduction in staffing. Um our staffing projections for next year show that we would

196um need to cut over 28 FTE from the elementary schools. So you think you know think back to when we were talking about our middle schools right it was 22.8 I think was the number and we felt like that was a huge impact. Only eight middle schools at that time but still an impact. Elementary has now grown to 28.3. We have more elementary schools. Obviously, it's spread a little bit more, but it impacts again elementary schools differently. There might be one elementary school that would need to reduce by 3FT and another one that wouldn't. So, um but as a whole, the projections were showing presc um a reduction of over 28 FT at the elementary level, which is not ideal. Um and then we're still having impacts at the middle and high school level, but

197remember some of these these numbers include um when we before we had made the um recommendation for the 4 to 89 uh closure and the reconfiguration out there. So that will help take care of um some of those overages, but we have still seen a decline in student enrollment. So we still have to make adjustments at the secondary level. So, if we were to just just to kind of give you a ballpark of the amount of FTE projected for next year that we would have to reduce if we had weren't making some of these decisions around Fruit 89 and then also doing some subsidies for the elementary. Um that's over $5 million um in projected staffing overages for next school year. Okay. Um, so, uh, it we felt like it wouldn't be fair to the

198elementary schools because we're not able to make a decision yet, um, to pull those FT out of those buildings because it would impact, um, um, programming at the elementary level. And so, not making those cuts would require a one-year subsidy of staff. Um, so our finance department, um, who's great, uh, worked on identifying some ESER funds, some onetime grant dollars that were earmarked for other things that we never spent them on. So it may have been a position that never got filled or whatever it might have been. And so we identified some funds that we could use one time that again are going to expire um, this coming school year um, to be able to help subsidize um, some of that overage for until we can make the decisions around elementary school closures. Um and

199so again just reminder those err funds run out in the September 24. So again that projected overage 5.1 million the projected fruit of reconfiguration seven uh savings is about 1.6 and so that net subsidy is around 3.5 million. I'm not doing this justice. If if Mel was here, she'd do a lot better job. Um so what does that mean for staffing for elementaryaries? We've already presented to the principles about this. We've already put this out to the community, but site directors are working with each elementary school principal to plan for staffing for next school year. If there is an opportunity to make um a reduction in staff without negatively impacting the operations of the building, so for example, if you've got a school that's projected to have really small class sizes at a grade level

200and you could combine those class sizes and still keep them at a reasonable level, then it would probably make sense to go ahead and make that reduction of FTE there because if not, it's just going to compound um for the following year. And so those are the conversations that site directors are having with um principles and we'll continue to have with them around okay your your projections show you should be reduced by this much. We obviously have some onetime funds to help subsidize that but is there any um area that you could make a reduction that wouldn't negatively impact uh programming in your building um so that it's not such a cliff um the following year um potentially. Okay. So that's those are conversations we're having right now. But again, knowing that we have those

201um ESR funds to subsidize staffing where uh reductions would potentially negatively impact the schools. And then I mentioned in the letter as well that we're engaging with some partners to help us um develop that preliminary decision model um that will help us uh better understand how to apply those six criteria. Um and um having that outside support to be able to have a fresh set of eyes to say um you know objectively this is where um you can make some of those um school closures or consolidations as a district and able um positively impact you around um staffing and funding and resources for your buildings. Um and then I just want to go back to this. This was from the EDC committee. Um and you know none of us want to make closures or consolidation

202decisions. Um, but we know that um, at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we have equipped and empowered elementary schools. And this was some of the stuff that we talked about in the committee. We want to make sure that we have schools that have strong teams that have, you know, ideally three to four teachers per grade level. It it allows for professional learning communities, um more staffing to spread out for duties, um more specials and enrichments, um those student supports, being able to have robust supports within the building. And then also again talking about quality facilities, making sure that we invest in quality facilities moving forward. So that's that's the goal. It's going to take time and not one pathway is not going to solve all of our problems. Um

203but that's the goal that we can get to eventually is to have these empowered equipped and empowered schools across our our district. So the other four pathways just to highlight or hit on them real quick. So pathway two um again that was the mill levy overrides. So we are working internally to explore the possibility of additional MLOs's to make up for the lack of state funding. Um you know I pause for a second. Um I appreciate um I know we heard from the governor today. He was in town. Um, I know that they're at the state level they're touting that um they're looking to buy down the BS factor and um to get back to finally get to fully funding K12 education in the state. Um, which still has has to happen. It hasn't happened

204yet. Um, just a reminder, we've they've withheld over $250 million from our district alone since 2009. So, I just want to be clear when the state says that they're going to fully fund K12 education potentially after this year, we're not getting the money that was withheld over time back. So, we're not going to get a check for $250 million next year. That money is gone. And our operating budget is a little over $200 million. So, that's over a year's worth of operating budget for a district that's been withheld over time. So, we're not getting that back. And then also, the funding um levels were set. The last time they were adjusted was 1989. So this would be getting us back to 1989 levels adjusted for inflation obviously, but um the state hasn't really invested in

205looking at what does it what does it actually take to educate students in 2024. Um there is a task force that was put together that has put out some recommendations as of last week. Um, and I I mentioned that in here that um those recommendations would um require an additional um I think close to $500 million just for next year. Um which you know what are the odds of that happening? Probably pretty slim. So this is it's more of a reminder to say like I think it's positive that the state's looking at these things, but we need to be realistic with the fact that it's not actually going to fully fund K12 education to a 2024 level um based on needs. And so we end up having to rely on those mill levy overrides to

206to subsidize what the state's not not funding for K12. And so um we have a 2017 mill that's going to sunset in 2027. We need to decide when to make the ask um of the community um and if that ask will remain the same or um if we're going to need to ask for more. So just to highlight the 2017 mill levy override which provides about $6.5 million annually for us and it doesn't adjust for inflation. um that doesn't cover the needs that were identified back then anymore. So the costs for the needs that were identified back in 2017 when we said five additional school days or instructional days um curriculum adoption um instructional uh technology needs capital construction like $6.5 million we identified at that time was what we would need. It's grown now

207to $7.4 million. So even the dollars we're getting from that mill override aren't covering what we said it was going to pay for back in 2017. So that those costs have already gone up. So it's just something to be mindful of when we do go out and ask for um either if we say to the community, hey, just keep this mill levy override going and don't put a sunset on it. We just need to be realistic that it's not even covering what we said it was going to cover back in 2017. Um and so those are just discussions we're going to have to have, but we are working on that internally to talk about timing of when we'd want to go for that and what would be the ask. Pathway three was um around the

208robust and align options. So in March, you're going to get a presentation um from that action team within the strategic plan that has been exploring that and they're going to present on um uh the current D-51 options um and next steps specific to the strategic plan goals um with an emphasis on K12 alignment. So they've got some data they're going to bring to youall in March. By the end of the year, we want to do a survey of families about interests in uh in current and new options, including questions about why families might choose other options. So we talked about wanting to do that. So this team is is is um working on that and then um going into next year being able to have an introduction of a processes to support current schools with

209unique programs and to support schools in adding unique programming. So if there's if we identify from these surveys that families are looking for I don't even want to throw out a topic, but if they're looking for some sort of program that we don't currently offer, then we can start talking about a process to work with um schools that maybe want to adopt that. You think about um Mount Garfield, right? they just adopt a year or two ago they became or they asked for funding to become an MYP. So now they've got a middle years program that they've started this school year and they're accepting applications for that's a unique program. It's going to have um potentially uh funding tied to it, but it it offers another option for our families and so we want to

210explore do we need other options like that to attract families to the community. Um so that's pathway three. We're still working on that as well. Um pathway four was around any new funding we might get from the state. So again, we we won't know what new funding we might receive from the state until closer to the end of the school year. That's just the way the funding works in our state. And so we have we don't really have a clear picture of what that might look like. Um over the last few years, um we have prioritized any new ongoing funding towards increasing staff salaries to try and be more competitive. Um you know, we've we've increased starting teacher salary by over about $10,000 over the last few years, but we're still lagging behind other comparable

211districts in the state. So, if we want to keep prioritizing that, we've got to be strategic about if we get new funding, are we going to use that to subsidize um things? Are we going to use it to continue to put it towards um our people, which I think would be an important um investment. I know the board does as well. Um I mentioned a while ago that there was a school finance task force report released last week that proposes additional funding for K12. Um but there's a long road left in that process. And so, um, you know, I some of the numbers they ran, our district would see an increase in funding, but again, they would have to completely shift, um, how they're funding K12 education in the state because there would be districts

212that would be losers and they'd be districts that would be winners. And some of the districts that would be losing funding are on the front range and um, they have an ear. And so, um, I'm just not as optimistic about that happening anytime soon, but it would be great if that happens over time if they actually do make adjustments to the formulas, um, to better fund school districts with the needs like we have uh, in our school district. Um, but we'll keep an eye on that as well. And then I mentioned before, we've been engaging with those folks, the um the content experts um who will help assist us in developing a multi-year master financial model um to integrate all the different major revenue and expense considerations, growth factors, sensitivity analysis for key components such

213as enrollment, state funding, and mil levy success. So that'll help us plan for for the outy years as well, which is something we we don't have right now. We don't have a multi-year um plan like that. And so they're going to be working with Mel and her team um to to create that and have something that we can use ongoing. And again, that's grant funded. So we're using grant funds to to pay for that. Um and then pathway 5. Um again, we've been engaging with those the same folks um in the field around um assisting us uh in an immediate review of all significant ongoing academic programs and investments. So this is the uh program evaluation and um to understand uh efficacy identify investments for re prioritization. They're going to identify academic investments which can

214be immediately dep prioritized if applicable. Academic investments will be ranked and prioritized based on both um efficiency and efficacy. So looking at return on investment and then provide um objective perspective on major academic investments and then make recommendations for potential reinvestment of academic spend on more effective programming. So and they're going to their scope's going to be outside of just the academic side of the house as well, but just looking at um centralized uh spending and funding and where could we potentially make some changes there um to find some um efficiencies. So that's what's happening with pathway 5 as well. So we'll have more information on that um as well. Okay. Um, so real quick, next steps. I promise I'm almost done. Um, so January, um, we already notified the board about the elementary um,

215decision or or or no decision for right now. Um, we notified the principles. We had a meeting with the principles to present that to them and then we sent out the letter to the staff. I know it says today, but that was um, from when we had that meeting. And then a letter to the families. Side directors again are working with the schools on staffing for next year. Just to be clear, um, middle and high school, we're still making the adjustments there because we're not closing any middle schools or high schools and we're not looking to do that in the future. So, we're still going to have to make the adjustments there. Um, but for the elementary level, um, we're going to work on where we need to make the cuts and where we need

216to subsidize using those onetime grant funds. Um, we're doing the presentation with the board now. We'll continue to have presentations moving forward. Um, March through the fall, we're going to f finalize that facility master plan. We'll continue working on these different pathways that I mentioned um and bring information forward. We need to create that closure policy as a board and that's going to be important um because it's something that we'll need to use when we make those decisions moving forward. Um and then again communicating with those potentially impacted communities um as we move forward. and then the fall finalize closure and consolidation process, recommend some uh the schools to the board, and then have a board vote um ideally in the fall that would take effect for the following school year. Um you know, I

217it's not ideal. Um I know that the longer that these decisions um are dragged out, it's just it's more on our community as a whole. It's it's a lot on this board. Um it's a lot on our administration. And so we don't want to keep doing that. but felt like there were real valid reasons for why we needed to delay um that decision until the following school year at this point. Um so with that, I'm going to stop talking. Um and if there are any questions folks might have um on this topic. So um and this might be a question for Nikki and she might not be able to answer it yet. Um, are we confident if you know we have the recommendations um later this year for consolidations, are we still looking at displacement

218for staff or would we be looking at any kind of reduction in force? Like do are we anticipating we'd still have enough positions open for displacement um and that we're not reducing we're not we're not laying off any staff. So, that's been my concern from the beginning is the longer we wait, I I'm concerned that um that there there'd be people we'd have to lay off. And I and again, I know we're probably making a prediction and we don't know for sure, but I'm just asking what our confidence level is on that. And I I assume you're talking about for elementary because um specifically Yeah. So, um, you know, obviously we'll have we'll have more data in the fall, um, because it'll be dependent upon how much of a, um, decline we continue to see

219in student enrollment and so whe how that's going to impact staffing. Um, it also will will depend on um, how many schools maybe get recommended um, for closure consolidation um, and then also the our financial situation moving forward as well. So, you know, I can't I can't confidently say what direction that would go. Obviously, we would we would prefer to not have to go that route and we prefer to do what we're doing right now, which with our middle and high or our middle school and our the fruit situation, which was being able to guarantee positions for folks and find positions for folks, but um I don't know. I'm looking at Nikki to make sure I'm not butchering anything she would have said. Is that I don't know about perfect, but um it was adequate.

220Um, yeah. So, that's not that's that is not something we want to explore. And I I think the longer we put things off, the more um the reality would become that we might have to do something like that. So, that's why we don't want to delay this um any further than having to make a decision next fall. Um and then obviously there's other strategies that we've employed or employed in the past that we could we could use to try to help with creating positions throughout the district. Um that's one of the reasons why when we've been exploring like the early retirement initiative or incentive, excuse me. um you know, if you're going to offer that district-wide now, is that really the most strategic option to do now? Because you might need to utilize that um

221next year if you're looking at additional school closures. And so those are conversations we've had internally as well, all within um the scope of trying to figure out ways to to not have to move towards what you're you're talking about. So, I think the follow-up question I would have, and I'll speak for myself, but maybe other board members would agree, is that I I would like a recommendation on all consolidations for us to take place. Um, so we're not again extending this over years. Um, you know, closing one elementary school next year and then having to do one more the following year. So, I know that's I know that's a balancing act for you all to decide um if what's too little or what's too much. Um but I think we just need to be

222able to make a decision and be able to move forward and and so with that too um are we at this point we've done east and then we've you know one year and then we've done the fruit 89 this year. Is that going to be too taxing on staff if we have more than one school consolidating in a you know in the 25 school year time frame? Um so it's definitely been taxing and it's been a learning experience for staff. So you know I think east what what made it even more difficult was the timing on it obviously. Um and you know I take uh blame for that. So it's you know we don't want to do that again. It just was a lot at one time. Um the 89 um obviously we did that

223earlier than we did with East, but that's obviously going to be a lot with a move and you're throwing in the Grand Junction High School move as well. So you're really we're really taking on two well it's two moves, but it's impacting multiple schools. So you've got Junction moving into the new junction. You've got the A9 building um that will the program that will be closing and then you're moving a middle school into that building and then you're also moving um kids into the the high school out in Fra and making adjustments there. So that is a lot at one time. So I think um you know obviously as this conversation continues we'll be talking about a number of schools at the elementary level but ideally it would be what we could handle um and

224it would be something that would be a recommendation we can make that would get us um through an extended period of time. I don't I would not look forward to saying we're going to do one now and then we're going to come back next year. I I don't think that's fair to this community um and to the board. And so, um, but we've got to find, for lack of a better term, that sweet spot. And that's why we're working with the folks that we're working with to figure out, um, what's the amount we would need to do, um, to help us get through this next phase, but we also don't want to make such a, um, cut that we can't adjust down the road if we end up seeing an increase in student enrollment. Thank

225you. Any other questions? Thanks for the recap on that and um just kind of the process that we've all had to go through um kind of thinking through all of that. So um all right, we have our school calendars um that we're ready to approve. So I think the main thing with that cuz um Jen's Jen's not here, she's at a um a work thing, but uh you have them in your packet. It's the additional calendars for like our charter our indistrict charter schools. They have they have their own calendar. So, it's just for you to review. Um, and I don't believe you're making a decision on those tonight. So, I think it's coming back um at the uh business meeting. So, it's it's kind of like the policies that we're going to look at

226next. It's just there for you to review. We have to do this every school year. Um, we adopt our district-wide calendar, which the board already did. Um, but then the um charter schools and DIA and New Emerson, they all make their own calendars because some of them are on four day weeks and and things of that nature. So, it's there for you to review. And then if y'all have any questions between now and um the business meeting, reach out to Jyn and her team and she can answer those. Thank you. All right. And then this evening we have um the policies first readings um uh GB for staff use of information and technology resources. JA compulsory attendance ages. Uh JH student absences and excuses. Um and then JKD and JKE student suspension and expulsion. So

227those are all in our packets. Um so take a look at those. Um and if you have questions um talk with Tammy um between now and the business meeting for any questions on the policies. So any other Okay. Um we are now going to move um into our business meeting. Um, so do I. Um, I don't have a copy of the resolution. Sorry, I only had You can bring it up. Oh, I like paper. Thank you, Amy. Oh, she's got it. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. So, this evening, um, we have one item to vote on. So, I'm going to read the resolution and then the board can make a motion for the resolution and we can go from there. Um, so this is um an amendment to the superintendent employment

228contract. So, um, the board of education recognizes the exceptional service and dedication of Dr. Brian Hill in leading our district towards its educational goals, and it is in the best interest of the district to maintain stability and continuity in leadership. And it is in the best interest of the district to amend Dr. Brian Hill's employment contract, and the amendment shall include adjustments aimed at enriching district leadership and promoting the continued achievement of the district's vision and goals. So now therefore it be it resolved the board of education of Mesa County Valley School District 51 hereby approves the amendment of the employment contract of Dr. Brian Hill under the terms of employment contract attached here to and authorizes and directs the board president and secretary to execute said employment contract on behalf of the board upon

229execution of same by Dr. Hill. So that is the resolution that we are voting on this evening. So, do I have a motion to approve the resolution? Motion to approve the resolution. Second. Any discussion. All right. Seeing none, we can take the vote. Mr. Chavez, yes. Mrs. Evansson, yes. Mrs. Heights, yes. Mr. Jones, yes. Miss Lima, yes. Oh, you were wait just seeing if he was still awake. Dr. Hill, did you have anything you wanted to say? Are you good? No, go go go ahead because we then we have we're we voted. So then um well obviously I'm I'm excited and I um want to thank the board. Um excited to um be able to continue serving the community. And so I wrote down words because I'll mess it up if I don't. So bear

230with me. I just thought I'd make the meeting even longer. Um so, um I do want to start from a place of gratitude and say thank you to the board of education for entrusting me with the opportunity to continue serving our community in D51 and Mesa County. Um I feel very honored to be a part of this team of six. Um serving our D51 community. Um I also want to thank prior board members in D51 that I've had the opportunity to work with. Uh two years ago, the board approved my con my current contract and I've had the honor of serving as the superintendent for the last one and a half years. Prior to that, I had the opportunity to serve our community as the assistant superintendent for three years. Despite the challenges we have

231faced as a district over the past four year four and a half years, I'm proud of the work we have done and the accomplishments we have seen and I'm committed to serving our district as we continue to work through these challenges for a better D-51. some of the work that we've done together to highlight. Uh we were the largest district in Colorado to return to in-person learning and stay open during the pandemic despite opposition. Through a collaborative effort, we successfully passed 2021 bond to allow construction of a muchneeded new Grand Junction High School. We created a new community-driven three three-year strategic plan, something the district hadn't had in place since 2017. For the first time in D51, we are creating a comprehensive facility master plan um that will provide a blueprint for how we best

232address building needs over the next 25 years. Over 80% of our schools are performing at the highest two academic levels in the state, surpassing our year one goal in our strategic plan. 80% of our K through three um students are reading at or above grade level, which is an all-time high for the district. We've added and and improved pathways for students to obtain college credits. In this past year, D51 students obtained a total of 9,479 college credits, which is an all-time high. Our graduation rate is at the highest level it's um we've seen in 17 years. Our students surpassed our prepandemic academic performance scores on SEMASS. We've increased our teacher starting salary by $10,000 since 2019 with average teacher and coun counselor salaries increasing this year alone by 11.5%. and we moved to a steps

233and lane salary schedule which rewards teachers for continuing their education. We negotiated and made necessary changes um to our insurance benefit package that allowed staff to increase their pay by decreasing their out-of- pocket costs each month. D51 reserves are more in line with comparable districts in the state's benchmark for reserve balance percentage and our insurance reserves are back to a healthy prepandemic level. We improved our accountability with the district by making necessary uh staffing changes throughout the district. Um we generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings by combining and not back backfilling positions throughout D51, including central office staff, utilizing in-house legal counsel rather than outsourcing services, um accessing our own buildings, thereby eliminating leases and modernizing our facility rental process. We increased communication with families and community through multiple mediums. And we've increased

234um our transparency with the board of education by implementing a better um open line of communication and accessibility so board members stay informed and involved uh in important decisions. This is just a snapshot of some of the work we have accomplished as a district together over the past few years. And the work hasn't happened alone. I want to be clear about that. I'm very grateful to all of the over 3,000 employees, teachers, principles, other schoolbased staff, central office staff uh in D51 who work tirelessly to serve our over 20,000 students. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for the support y'all have shown me over the years. I'm grateful to my senior leadership team who have given of themselves 7 days a week uh in a work a crazy work schedule and they work

235crazy hours to support our 40 plus schools. So, thank you to our senior leadership team. I'm committed to continuing the work that needs to be done in our district because I know I have the support of this great team. I'm grateful to our D51 families and community partners for all that they do to support the work that we do. We have a great community. Uh and I'm proud to be a part of it and to be raising our kid in the community. Why is it when I mention family I get all emo. Um speaking I should have just cut this part out. Uh, speaking of my family, I shouldn't have cut this part out. Sorry. Um, I'm grateful uh to my lovely wife Kayn and our amazing son Everett for all that they do to

236support me in this job. Uh, and for being there for me when I'm stressed and feeling overwhelmed. Um, you know, our son started his kindergarten year the fall we moved here. Um, and has continued to grow as a student thanks to the amazing teachers and staff that have worked with him. Um, and so that that's really important to us as well. Um, we're committed to our community. Uh, and I look forward to continuing to serve our community in the capacity of superintendent schools as we continue to progress towards a day when D51 is the top school district in the state of Colorado. Um, I'm going to end tonight by sharing something that I shared two years ago when the board approved my first superintendent contract, and that's my core values as a leader. Um, they

237are first and foremost all means all, meaning that every kid has access to opportunities in our district. I strive to put kids first in every decision that I make as a leader. I try to practice empathetic servant leadership every day in my job. I try to leverage my position of influence to remove barriers to uh student and staff success. I believe that every perspective brings value and I believe in collaboration over confrontation. I share those now like I shared them then to point out that they haven't changed. Um these are values that have helped guide my actions and inform how I show up as a leader for our student, staff, and community that we serve. And they will continue to inform and guide my actions in the years to come. Um, so with that, uh,

238thank you again to the board, uh, and to our community for entrusting me with the honor and duty of leading this district into the future. Um, I ended with this quote at White Ice last weekend, and I'll end with it here because it's one of my favorites. The quote is that if you're, uh, going to be in the business of making something, be in the business of making something great. Um, we're making something great in D51, and it's because of our teachers, our staff, our admin, our families, this board, and community partners. and I'm proud to get to serve alongside all of y'all and continue to make D-51 a great place for students. Thank you. [Applause] Well, thank you for those words and we're um excited about I think stability and um just the the

239path that we're we're moving towards and I know you haven't always had an easy board to work with. either, but you've been very gracious and um I think you've brought um last board and this board together and I think it's um it been beneficial. So, thank you for for your leadership. So, all right, any we have open board discussion? Um, for me, I just want to I know she's not here, but uh, Angela Christensen and the D-51 Foundation put a a wonderful white eye celebration on and it was good and congratulations to all of our award winners and it was good to see so many schools, different schools win so many different awards. So, let us know we're doing some things right and we're headed in the right direction. So, we also attended the pancake

240breakfast at New Yeah. on Saturday. Dr. Hill was there. We we missed you in Everett, but uh the entire board Yeah, we all made it made it to that and the pancakes were exceptional and the uh the company with with some of the parents and the kids from New Emerson was really the most fun. So, that was a a fun thing to get to do. We also have a board coffee coming up. So, yes, this Saturday, right? This Saturday at Do we know where it is? At Rimrock. Go ahead. So, something I wanted to kind of bring to the community's attention is that um a lot of people when you go through your kids drawers and you get rid of clothes and things like that, you'll run them down to the Goodwill or wherever Salvation

241Army, whatever is available. Well, there's a need in our schools um for any used clothing that's, you know, lightly used. Um, you can call a school that's close to your home and see if they have a need for that size. Uh, we do have a community closet at Grand Junction High School that's ran by Jodie Kronck, who is a teacher at Grand Junction High School. She's fabulous. Um, we've had needs within the community that have been met through that community closet. She calls it the boutique. It's awesome. Um, I've called her from a middle school and said, "Hey, I need this. I have a kid over here that needs this." She's like, "Come over and take whatever you want." So, she's super, you know, accommodating. Um, so you can call whatever school you need. They'll

242tell you who you can drop it off with or where you can drop it off at and then it goes back into our community. Um, another thing that we have within our schools, I'm not sure if some of you guys are aware at, but like Taupe Elementary, we currently have the Watchdog Dads program. And the Watchdog Dad's program um has been facilitated through um a fabulous parent here named Kirby Richardson. And the purpose of the Watchdog Dads program is kind of twofold. It puts strong male support leaders in our schools, dads that are there for their children, and it helps them to be role models for other kids within our schools. And it doesn't have to be just dads. be grandpas, it can be uncles, it can be brothers, it can be anything. And they

243go through a background process um and a vetting if you will before they're allowed to walk into our schools. Um another reason for that is that it puts another sets of another set of eyes in our schools that's not necessarily they're you know teaching and you know paying attention to 27 kids in a classroom. You know they're there walking the halls or they're in the lunchroom or they're outside during recess. So, it helps to enhance our safety and security. And we're trying to get this in some of our middle schools um to help with some incidents that are happening throughout the district. Gives that extra safety and security. So, if you hear it coming about at one of your kids' middle schools or high schools or any or even in elementary school, like please step

244up. We would love to see the the parents in our community become involved in their kids' schools and put in that that volunteer time. And honestly, I think that the Watchdog Dads program is only like one, honestly, I think it's one day a year for each parent, but we have to have an organizer at each school. So, that's something that we're trying to work on and getting throughout multiple schools in the district. So, please step up, come out, help out. We'd appreciate it. And we're especially looking for folks that might want to help at Bookcliffe, Bcliffe Middle School and Grace Middle School, I think. Um, I know Bookcliffe has the Oh, they but but they're they're struggling with getting the the Yeah. the facilitator and and the people to actually just get it going. Yeah.

245And you can actually look them up online, right? And you can see the um kind of the work that they've done in other communities and it decreases bullying, fighting, just behavior issues. And again, it's just a great way for you to be a positive role model um in our schools. And like Barb said, it doesn't take a lot of time. So, thank you for that reminder. That's great. Um and I think is there a boutique at Bookcliffe Middle School, too? I think when we toured there last year, they they were starting one or they at least had some items. And then I think Central was starting one, too. So, I think you're right, Barb. Just call the school near you and they probably know where you can take clothes. Yeah, Grand Junction definitely has like

246the entire boutique setup. Um, I know that Central has uh some resources available there. Um, but Dos Rios has one for elementary aged kids and I know Junction has one for high school and you know, whatever. They they take just about everything there. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Um All right. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. All right. Thank you, everyone.